I ordered a book from a member back in August. I'm not sure what happened but it appears to have gone on to a second person. On my account page it stated that the member wouldn't be able to mail the book until at least 9 days later. I was able to cancel the request and got my credit back and ordered a similar book from someone else. I ordered the book on the 7th and on my account page it says still waiting for member. Anyhow I decided to look at my transaction archive page and this is what it says in regards to the first book I ordered.......

Mailed From:
Mailed To: FL

Request Date: 8/23/2009 4:55 PM ET
Alternate Date: 8/31/2009 11:00 PM ET
Wrapper Printing(s):

• 8/26/2009 10:02 PM ET

Date Canceled: 9/3/2009 3:08 AM ET

If I'm understanding this correctly it appears that a wrapper was printed on the 8/26. Did the first person forget to click accept? It is showing an alternate date of 8/31 which I figured was the date that the request moved on to the second person. I'm just really confused about all of this.

Thanks for your help!

Once the sender prints the wrapper, you should not be able to cancel the book (only the sender can cancel). How did you do that? (It looks to me like PBS automatically canceled the request because it was never "marked Mailed")

The alternate date is the mailing date that they selected when they accepted the book.

PBS will automatically cancel a book order (even after the wrapper is printed) if the sender does not  "marked Mailed" before the mailing deadline. When this happens, the system will automatically pass your book request on to a second person.

Sometimes the first sender has already mailed the book and just forgot to mark it mailed for one reason or another. One thing you could do is PM them, and ask them if they actually mailed it out. If they did, you may want to hold off on ordering a second copy. When you receive the first copy, you can mark it received from your transaction archive.

If you have already ordered a second copy, and you recieve the first copy anyway, even though PBS cancelled the order, then you do not need to mark the first copy recieved.

I believe the alternate date is the date that the sender agreed to mail by.

From what I can tell:
You placed the order on 8/23

The sender accepted the order and printed the wrapper on 8/26, agreeing to mail by 8/31.

When the book was not marked mailed by 9/2 (2 days after the mail by date), the system cancelled the order on 9/3.  It may have moved on to a 2nd sender after that.

Thank you, that makes sense. I just couldn't figure out what happened. lol