i requested a wishlist book from a fellow member on 9/12. the member created a shipping label using PBS printable postage and  marked the book mailed on 9/14. according to the post office DC# the post office acceptance date  wasn't until 10/1. so my question is this do i go by the acceptance date from the post office and assume that this member created the shipping label and then just waited 3 more weeks before they mailed the book?  this book was almost considered lost in the mail and i did not get any communication from the sending member letting me know that they would be mailing out late. since they got an instant credit for this book i am staring to think that they had their credit and then figured i can just mail out whenever. what would you think/do? mark RWAP?

here is the post office tracking info.

If it arrived within the stated time frame, did not go lost, and is in the required condition, I see absolutely no reason you would mark it as RWAP.

There is a mail by committment date at PBS so if the member failed to mail in the required time, I would RWAP. That behavior is not acceptable. 

You can mark it Received with a problem - Late Postmark. You can't ask for your credit back for this type of problem unless you received a second copy of the book due to the first copy being marked lost because of the late mailing, and that doesn't seem to be the case here.

One thing to be aware of with Acceptance scans is that sometimes these do appear at strange times. I once had a package that was dropped off at the Post Office get an acceptance scan 10 days later. It was a single paperback book, so pretty small, and I'm guessing it fell and got lost behind something at the PO and they scanned it when they found it. All the others that were dropped off with it never got acceptance scans (which is normal when leaving packages with pre-printed postage at my PO,) and they had already been scanned as delivered by the time this one book was scanned Accepted.

Also, the mail carrier who picks up from the blue box near my office is now scanning books Accepted. This box has no pickup on weekends, and sometimes they just randomly skip the Friday pickup, so a book I mailed on Thursday might get an acceptance scan on the following Monday.

I'm not saying that your example is a USPS mistake -- the other member probably really is a late mailer -- but if she responds to your RWAP with "I really did mail it on time!", just be aware that it does happen.

Certainly everything Kathy says is very possible. Why now that every package has tracking is the member not made aware of the dc# so they can follow or question it?  Members should be able to enter DC# into the PBS ayatwm. My [ractice is to simpl]y send a PM.  This would solve issues. There is never an excuse for non response. 

If you search the help center you will find the information for receiving a book late. I am pretty sure the wording in there says that you should not be using scan dates, only actual dates on the package. If there is no metered date on the package you have no knowledge of the real date it was mailed. No matter how much you suspect from the details on the tracking number.

It appears that the member printed a label on 9/14 and marked it mailed before actually mailing the book, and then did not send the book until much later. There is a possibility that this was a USPS error, but I am inclined to think it is more likely that the member printed the label with the intent to mail it promptly, but did not do so. I would not mark it RWAP as long the book was received within the allowed PBS time frame. Cathy's suggestion to mark it RWAP - Late Postmark may be the way to go, but read the PBS help docs first to see what may be the appropriate action to take in this case.

Cathy A is right!

It is very possible that the member mailed the book right around the time she printed the label.  She dropped it in a box or handed over the counter,  and it fell behind a machine or somewhere behind the bin they throw packages in...........and when somebody finally found it at USPS, they placed it back into the "stream".    Thus, acceptance wasn't shown until many days later.

I mention this because it's actually happened to me........... twice!  Not with any books from here, but with a DVD I mailed (on time) and also a very small package I sent my Mom once.     

As long as I receive a book and it has not timed out to the point where I have obtained another copy in the meantime, I would not RWAP the book.  

Speaking as a retired USPS employee, I can say as a fact that this happened with an article mailed from my post office, slid down behinc a counter and wasn't discovered for WEEKS.  So it is possible to be a USPS error.

That does happen.

I recently had the following scans on a WL book that I received:

Delivery Confirmation Events

1. 9/15/2015 4:22 PM ET - - AUSTIN, TX
2. 9/15/2015 10:38 PM ET - Electronic Shipping Info Received - AUSTIN, TX
3. 10/14/2015 2:23 AM ET - - AUSTIN, TX
4. 10/14/2015 3:38 AM ET - Enroute - AUSTIN, TX
5. 10/14/2015 6:38 AM ET - - AUSTIN, TX
6. 10/17/2015 1:47 AM ET - Enroute - TRENTON, NJ
7. 10/17/2015 6:53 AM ET - - TRENTON, NJ
8. 10/17/2015 7:26 AM ET - Arrival at Unit - [town], NJ
9. 10/17/2015 9:00 AM ET - Sorting / Processing Complete - [town], NJ
10. 10/17/2015 9:10 AM ET - Out for Delivery -[town], NJ
11. 10/17/2015 12:47 PM ET - Delivered - [town], NJ

In my case the book did not show any scans for a month after the label was printed. I never PMd nor received any PMs from the sender. The book did go lost in the mail here, but when it did, I checked the DC and saw that it was enroute to me so I put it on hold on my WL, and when it arrived I marked it received in good condition from my transaction archive. I got the book, and only that copy of the book, so I saw no reason to RWAP. While it is most probable that the sender mailed late, I had no way of proving whether they did or didn't and didn't feel right about possibly penalizing them for a book that got stuck under the seat of the postal truck for a month...and in any case, I received a WL book in excellent condition and was happy with the transaction.

The issue is the PBS timeframe. Media mail as per USPS website is between 3 and 8 business days. Since tracking has been available for media mail via USPS, I have tracked and  found this range to be totally correct with an average of 5/6 days. PBS is way off base as to its estimates and needs to update. PBS needs to realgn its delivery expectations to reality. If a item has not been received in 10 business days it is "lost". The book in question was received within 3 days of being mailed.

I have noticed, since the first of the year, that USPS is taking longer than before to send some media mail packages.  What used to take only 3 to 5 days for a few states away sometimes takes 7 - 10 days now.  Even before then, there have been some to take a much longer time as in 2 to 4 weeks especially if the package, for unknown reasons, takes a tour across the U.S. and back before delivery.

For example, a book coming to me from Florida to Texas normally only takes 3 to 5 days.  The last couple of them have taken 7 and 8 days.

So, there is good reason for PBS and other sites to have a larger estimate of days to delivery - to include the unexpected delays.

-- Jill

My PO, in a fairly large town, scans items, even at the mailbox, but they often don't show up under Details until the book has passed through one or two other POs or even been delivered!