A WL book I sent out went lost in the mail a couple days ago. I was bummed but was happy to get an e-mail today saying it was received. My P.O. has not been great lately as my books seem to be taking a bit longer but they are still getting to their locations. Right after that I got an e-mail saying that the book had a late postmark of 11/15 on it! I mailed this book right away as I indicated using printable postage purchased thru PBS. Now I am worried that this will be a 'black mark' on my account. This just really threw me I guess as I always send my books when stated and if something does come up I always pm the other person to let them know what is going on. 

(Maybe I needed to vent a little more than actually ask a question! )

They may have just clicked on the wrong date when marking it received.

It's no big deal to have one of these on your record. It's an automated email that gets sent out. They don't have time to pay attention to that stuff.  It only affects you if it happens a lot.

I use printable postage a lot and usually choose the latest date but I mostly mail way earlier than the date printed on the wrapper. I also worried about them being marked as late postmarks with the new options when a book is received. But, since there are details regarding those books with scans etc along the way, I figure that covers any questions that PBS would have and I am safe. So far I have been lucky and haven't received any late postmark complaints. Hope I didn't just jinx myself, lol.

One thing I have noticed about the printable postage, if you choose the I can mail later option, and print the wrapper before that date, it still puts the date you chose on the wrapper.  So if you mark you will mail it on Friday, but print it on tuesday, and mail on wednesday, it still has the friday day on the wrapper. 

Like RWAPs, the site only pays attention when there is a pattern of late mailing.  The automatic email that's sent is supposed to say that it could have been marked late in error, but I don't know for sure since I've never gotten one.  So the Team is understanding that sometimes it is marked as late by mistake.

I have taken to saying the latest possible date for mailing and then mailing several days ahead just to avoid those annoying "mark mailed" emails in the middle of the night on the day I've indicated. I've found that if I forget to change the mailing date before printing, sometimes the scans don't show up properly til days later.

Would a smaller post office ever hand-cancel a book that's passing through its locale if it already had printed postage on it? Maybe that's what happened. At any rate, as others have said, don't worry overly much, it's patterns of problems that causes your account to be flagged, not an isolated incident.

Cheryl

And remember, the late postmark is tied to the transaction which will show DC scans.  Any type of account review in the next 4 to 6 months (how long USPS keeps DC info) will show the book enroute on schedule.

And frankly, I doubt TPTB will pay much attention.  I honestly don't think I've ever seen printable postage arrive with an actual postmark.  And since USPS is supposed to return stale postage, it's likely that PBS admin would correctly assume receiver error.

The late postmark information is only used when it shows a pattern, so as long as you don't have a pattern of mailing late then you have no worries.

I mailed this book right away as I indicated using printable postage purchased thru PBS. <--- this phase confuses me. Are you saying that there was a scan showing it was mailed earlier? Because just simply using printable postage doesn't really indicate we actually mail it on time. Usually a post office won't accept it late, but unless there is a scan on the DC, the use of PBS postage doesn't really tell anyone the mail date either. I have received printed postage that was restamped on a later date. Not saying you mailed your book late, but its possible someone handstamped the book for some reason along the way and that is the mark they used.