Hi, I sent out a book that's just about to reach it's 'lost in mail' date.  I've sent the member two PM's, one week apart from each other, very politely asking if she received the book yet.  Have not gotten a response from her.  Is it a rule of some sorts that a person has to respond to a PM about sending/receiving a book?  I tried looking in the help docs, but didn't find anything.  Missed it if it's there.  I'll send another PM after it goes "lost" and if she doesn't respond in a week, do I inform TPTB about it?  Thanks!

Nope, no member is required to respond to a PM and there's no need to contact the higher powers about a book that's gone 'lost' in the mail; indeed, you have no reason to contact them about a book gone 'lost' as there is nothing that sounds fishy about this swap (some members choose not to respond to PM's for whatever reason and that is their choice).

There are a lot of reasons that this could have happened: your requestor may be away from home, with no way to check the book and mark it off until she returns home; it may be delayed at the Post Office, as often happens with Media Mail; or it may have actually gone lost along the way. If so, there's nothing you can do about it except hope that it will show up to your requestor one day and she'll finally be able to mark it off as 'recieved'.

Actually, what Erin says is untrue. This information is in the Help Docs for what to do when you are in this situation:

If a book you sent is declared Lost in the Mail at PBS:

• First, contact the requestor to confirm that the book was not received.

  • Sometimes the requestor just forgot to mark it received
  • Sometimes the requestor was away from home when the book arrived
  • If you don't hear back from the requestor within a week of sending a PM asking about the book, you should contact us to look into the situation.
  • You can contact the requestor using the PM button on the "lost" transaction in your transaction archive.

In certain situations on PBS communication is of the utmost importance, and it is not acceptable to ignore a PM.

Yes, Forrest - as Jennifer wrote above, send a PM after the book has gone lost and if there is no reply after a week you can contact TPTB.  The requestor is not required to reply to the PM's you sent before the book went lost.

They may mark the book received for you if they deem the requestors account to possibly be inactive. If it shows no signs of activity since they requested the book and ignoring your PM would be a sign of inactivty.  I think you are PMing people too early. Sometimes books take a month to get somewhere. I know if I was getting PMs from someone 2 wks after they mailed the book and then more after that-I'd be really annoyed. 

In addition to the fact that they are required to respond to your PMs after the book has gone lost, the Help Center also says that you should contact them if a book marked lost was sent with DC and the DC shows the book scanned as delivered and then let the Team know if they do not respond after a week.

A receiver refusing to answer PMs about a lost book will most likely have the book marked received for them.

Have patience Forrest. PMing before the lost date can often annoy the receiver since they figure that its obvious they didn't get the book since they haven't marked it received. Once it is marked lost by the system, then send a PM asking that they give you confirmation that they do not have to book so that you can start the trace on lost mail with the post office. If they don't respond then, follow the time line in the Help Center for contacting the Team so that they will let the receiver know that ignoring you is not a option they have.

Oh, whoops. Sorry, I didn't realize that. But then again, I've never been too worried if a book goes 'lost' because I figure it will either turn up or it won't. I've only had a couple of books I've sent go 'lost' in the mail and they were all marked as 'recieved' no more than a week later.

Sorry for my mis-information, Forrest.

Interesting (as usual), I didn't know the part where members are required to answer pm's regarding a book that has gone 'lost'...learn new stuff all the time around here!

Denise > Yep, I learned something new because that was something I did not know either! :)

It doesn't matter too much if you are the one who was supposed to be receiving the book, after all, you got your credit back. But when you are the one who is now potentially out a book and the cost of shipping, you are going to want to figure out what is going on and if the book is truly lost.

I am inclined to let the system do the work. Automated reminder e-mails are sent by PBS periodically before the book goes lost, asking them if they have received the book and providing a link to click to mark received if they had and just forgot. So the requestor sending PMs about the same thing before the book goes lost--especially multiple PMs weeks before the lost date--is both redundant and annoying, IMO. I would be disinclined to respond to them.

If the person is truly inactive and has not logged in to PBS for multiple weeks, when the system declares the book lost, it actually marks it received for you. If it goes lost and that doesn't happen, it means that they have been logged in at some point, and then it is appropriate to send a PM and ask if indeed, they hadn't received the book.

Cheryl

I PM the person right before the book is about to go lost.  Most times they magically mark it immediately after that.  I think some people ignore automated messages.  To be honest, I usually do.