I requested a book on August 9th, got a label print date of the 13th with a mail by date of the 14th.  I went back and checked on it in the 20th and found that it had another print date of the 18th.  So I sent a pm and asked did they have an issue and have to mail it late or what the deal was as this book was to be a gift.  ZERO response and still no book.  Grrrrrrrrr!  SERIOUSLY?  Dont mark a book mailed if you havent mailed the bloody thing!!!!!

Are you sure it was the same sender? It is possible that the first sender may have never marked it mailed, in which case it would have been passed on to another member. 

Three days isn't exactly an unreasonable amount of time to pass before a response, especially being over a weekend. Is their account on vacation hold? If it gets to be a week since you sent the message and you still have not heard from them you can contact the PBS team about it.

Is the book marked mailed now? What date was it marked as mailed?

It sounds like you may have gotten a whole new sender and they have no clue what they are talking about because they just got the request. The person who said they'd mail it by the 14th would have gotten timed-out on the 16th or the 17th (depending on whether that was a 2 day I can mail, or an I can mail later selection.)   They may not answer because they they don't know what to say when you talking about ordering it on the 9th makes no sense since they received your request on the 16th or 17th.

If it was not marked mailed by the 17th, then I would say the first transaction was cancelled by the system and a new sender agreed to send it and printed the wrapper on the 18th. You can confirm that by looking in your Transaction Archive to see if the book is listed there or in your Credit Registry to see if the book was passed on to a new sender around that time.

It was marked mailed on the 18th.  I dont know how it can be from a different person if it was accepted on the 10th, printed on the 13th and then I had the little message saying it would be mailed on the 14th.  The other issue is it's only coming from 2 states away.  My brother-in-law works for the post office and he told me that it should have been here by now even if it was mailed media rate.  Sheesh.  Its just frustrating because I dont operate this way, Im always very considerate of people who want books from me.

If it was marked mailed on the 18th, it's really too early to expect it already. Media mail is very unpredictable. I think we can all tell stores of books traveling across the county in a matter of days and then those that take weeks to travel a few towns away.

Edited for spelling

If for any reason, the sender wanted to look up your address again, it would show that as the print date.  I did that once or twice when I wanted to check to see what state I sent the book to.  Just another possibility.

Your BiL may work for the PO but he doesn't seem to really know much about Media Mail. I've had books from less than 100 miles away, in the same state, take almost 2 wks. And it was a PO stamp that was not metered after it was mailed, it was a counter stamp the day it was mailed. I've seen several books take that long when they have to go thru a specific bulk mail depot to get here. I've even seen priority take extra long if it has to go thru there! So, it's not just MM when the pkg has to go thru that particular black hole!

Lsressler is right, the mail (whether we are talking media mail or otherwise) is very unpredictable. They may like to give certain numbers of days that pkgs will take, but they are not very honest with those dates. I've sent way too much mail and tracked it to believe them when they say 2-3 or 5-8 or whatever. And by far, MM is the worst for being variabled in it's time allotments.

Yeah it seems like a lot of my media mail books are taking longer than this time last year. I think USPS has probably been cutting back, and since media mail is lowest priority, the packages are getting bumped more. 

Be patient! 

It is so funny because I had a book arrive from Washington state in 3 days w/ media mail and I have been waiting for 8 days for a book from PA . 2 states away. Crazy. They were mailed on the same day.

I personally would be really annoyed to get that PM from you and would probably not respond-knowing I couldn't keep myself from being rude. 

PBS is not the place to get a gift book unless you order it quite awhile in advance.  Like the others-I've had books take 2 days to go cross country and others take 3 wks to travel 4hrs from here. 

Ok, here is what I'm understanding you to say...

Book Ordered 08/09/10

Book Accepted 0810/10

Will Mail By 08/14/10 (note this is the predicted date they will get it in the mail by, not that it was actually mailed)

Label Printed 08/13/10

Marked Mailed 08/18/10

By this outline of events the original sender that accepted and said they would mail by the 14th, is not likely the one that marked it mailed on the 18th as the book would have timed out like Melanie said on the 16th or 17th.

Like someone said, your BIL may work for the Post Office but, doesn't really understand Media Mail....There is a Reason that PBS gives the length of time it does because Media mail is unpredictable and shipped on a space available basis.

Media Mail varies alot for delivery times.  Today was like Christmas & I received 5 MM packages, all with visible postmark or counter postage.  Arriving in Washington State from:  Iowa  8/17/10
                                             New Hampshire 8/13/10
                                             Pennsylvania 8/20/10
                                             Minnesota 8/17/10
                                             Wisconson 8/17/10
 

If you go to your Credit Registry, which is on the horizontal yellow bar on your My Account page, you can see whether your first order was canceled and then "passed on" to a new sender.

I personally would be really annoyed to get that PM from you and would probably not respond-knowing I couldn't keep myself from being rude. 

Considering you have absolutely no idea what I said in my pm, I dont see why you would react by being rude.  My pm was very nice, non-accusatory and was basically just an inquiry if perhaps they had something come up.  Seriously if you get torqued by that kind of pm, Im glad it wasnt you. Jeeez  

I think what many of you are missing is what the annoyance here is FOR ME.  It's not that the book isnt here yet.  It's all the dinking around it took for it to get mailed.  When I get a book request, 99% of the time, I accept it, print it and mail it on the same day. There has been a couple of times where I accepted it, printed it and mailed it like 4 days later. That's it, I didn't lollygag around with the persons request.  Now IF I'm misunderstanding the chain of events here, then I'm wrong and I apologize.  If not, then yep, Im still annoyed.

EDIT:  Patty I just went and looked and nope, just the one request for that book, back on August 9th. 

Everyone varies with how often they can get to the post office. Sometimes life happens and you just can't make it as quickly as planned. PBS gives a certain amount of leeway (and they are much stricter about it than other swapping websites). When you mooch a book, you should just expect that it will take a week or more to get mailed and several more weeks to get to you. Sometimes much more if it rolls over a few times before being accepted. 

No, we understand the problem, it's your lack of patience. Which seeing that you have been a member for over a year now, I'm really surprised that you haven't learned PBS Patience yet. There are tons of people that will take the full 5 day+ to mark the request accepted, and then mark the last 5 day time listed to mail, and then use the extra two days as well.

Basically, as I implicated, PBS patience is totally different than regular patience. PMs can take up to 5-7 days to be responded to, since some people have varying Internet access time. Mailing times vary also, because a lot of people try to make as few trips to the PO as possible, partly due to gas, partly due to convenience for the person they are inconveniencing by asking them to go to the PO for them. And then you have to deal with what stands for mail service by using Media Mail.

So, yeah, patience is a unique virtue at PBS, and something that is greatly needed, because most people call it "dinking around" on a good day :)   I'm one of those people that dink around. I just finally accepted a request today, within a few hours of the end of acceptance time, which means I waited 5 days and a couple hours to accept the request, but I also accepted one just hours after it was requested. Then I mailed one today that was the last day, and also one that was still on its first day. So, yeah, I dink around, but it's due to circumstances. Many times hubby isn't home or doesn't feel well enough to go upstairs and shuffle the banana boxes of books to find the one that contains the book he is up there looking for and some times it doesn't happen for several days. Then I can accept, and then I wait for a couple days to give myself  (or rather him) a good chance at having some extra time to get more than one book on his next trip into the boxes upstairs.

So, I'm sorry for you that you've run into someone that uses the allotted time limits in a way that I do, but it's the only way I can participate. And I've certainly participated over the last 5 yrs. I've traded over 2,000 books out in those years. No idea how many I've truly traded, because deals don't count more than 1 or however many the trade starts with (2 if it's a 5/2 or similarly). I hope in the future you will allow the full 4 weeks for mailing and the full 2 weeks for dinking around with the system to get it mailed in the first place, since both are possible. And even then, the book could go lost in the mail after all that patient waiting :)

I personally would be really annoyed to get that PM from you and would probably not respond-knowing I couldn't keep myself from being rude.

To be honest, I would be annoyed too. I would have answered, but I may have been short with you. I have mailed out a book that went lost in the mail, then the person received it 4 months later. Before I started using DC, if a book hadn't been marked received within a week or so, I would use the print label button to see where it was going. It might also be the case that they don't have access to a computer at all times. How long ago did you send the PM? I would give it at least 5 to 6 days before I would start thinking they were ignoring me. Some people can only get on the computer when they're at the library or at work.  As far as your BIL, I agree with everybody else. He is either new on the job, or he doesn't know his job. I live 3 hours away from Buffalo, but it took 3 weeks for a book to make it from there to me. Media mail is the lowest grade for the PO. That means if they have room on the truck for it  they'll put it on the truck, if not then your package sits there in a bin until they do have room for it. I know this because I asked my postmaster who's been in charge of our PO for  forever. I hope your book makes it to you soon, but please don't just assume someone is taking their sweet time to mail something to you just because. As others have said, there is a reason PBS gives the book a month to make it to it's destination.

You maybe annoyed at how long it's taking to get to you, but some of us have at least 20 or so books coming and going at the same time.  Some people have deaths or births  in their families. They may have been in a accident. Maybe they were sick. That is why you get 12 from the time it's requested until the day it has to be mailed. We might find your PM annoying because of your impatience.

edited to fix my third grade level spelling

So basically anyone who doesn't mail the first day is annoyance to you?  Even though they are well withing the time-frames set up by PBS?  Even Amazon doesn't always ship the same day when you order books from them. 

And anyone who waits the full 5 days to accept a request but accepts the request before it times out and then takes the full allotted mailing time to mail isn't lolly-gagging. They are working within the timeframes set up by PBS and have every right to do it that way. 

If the "mail by" date was the 14th, wouldn't it have rolled over to the next person on the 16th if it wasn't marked mailed?

Not everybody has the time or money to mail same day, like you do.  When I get a request for the book, it depends on when I mail it.  First of all, I do not drive, so getting to the PO is not always an easy task.  Secondly, it depends on how much money I have at the time, especially when more than one book is requested.  Mailing three books to different states on the same day can get costly, so I may choose different dates on the book.  If I ever mail a book later than the date chosen, I always let the receiver know, but this may not have been a case of a late-mailed book, like others mentioned.  The original request may have timed out and went to the next sender, like others said.  Or, as someone else stated, and I HAVE done this as well, to look at the address to see where it was going.  It may have been something COMPLETELY innocent, so assuming the person mailed it late is not right, and if this is the case, not responding to your PM may be the only choice the person has.  If I had gotten your PM, I would have not ignored it because that is the kind of person I am--I always answer.  However, I have learned that many members do not always answer, depending on the subject matter.  And if you were making an assumption about him or her, I can understand.  It is not necessarily an admission of guilt not to answer.  My advice is to lay low and to wait for the book.  Once it arrives, check the date on the book.  If it was mailed later than the 14th, then you will know you were correct, and you can said a friendly PM thanking the person for the book but that you wish that he or she could have mailed it on time.  If it was mailed on the 14th, a friendly apology is in order.  Plus, I have noticed that when a member says a book is mailed, say on the 14th, the person has several days after to mark it mailed.  This recently happened on a book I ordered--it was marked to be mailed on the 14th, but the member did not mark it mailed until the 19th, and this is under PBS rules.  So, with PBS and the USPS, there is a little leeway, and I think you are kind of jumping the gun.  Just be a little patient.

Just a bit of a sidebar...a diversion if you will.

I've noticed in several posts here and elsewhere folks expressing concern about the cost of mailing a book or two and not being able to afford it.

I am fortunate enough that 2 dollars plus some change once or twice a week isn't going to create a hardship; I know others are not so fortunate. 

Even tho the cost of postage isn't a big deal for me I still throw spare change and dollar bills into an old coffee cup at work and use that to pay for postage.

You would be surprised how quickly my little stash builds up!

-RD

I 'get' what she is saying....the person marked the book mailed on the 14th, but then on the 18th, the label was printed for the SECOND time. That's what she's wondering...why print another copy of the label if you have, indeed, sent the book 4 days before? I have found that on most occasions when this occurs--and usually, it's a couple of WEEKS later, not a few days--the person has indeed mailed the book late. But there could be a reason for someone to print another label after mailing--for example, people have said that they hit the 'print label' button by mistake instead of the 'details' button. I know awhile back there was someone who mentioned keeping a copy of every label they sent a book to--which I don't understand the need for, but there you go. Some people are obsessive. So, while it looks suspicious, there's no real basis for a definite assumption that the book was mailed late.

At any rate....patience is indeed a virtue. Media mail is wackier than heck, and while most get to where they're going in a short time, some go walkabout. I would never count on getting a book ordered from PBS for something that is time-sensitive, nor would I plan it for a gift. I would never send a PM to someone about the mailing date of a book unless the book was just a couple of days from the system action date when it would go lost.

Cheryl

To the OP ... I agree that it is very annoying when people do not mail the books on the dates they have chosen. (Personally, i don't mind if people take the full time to accept or mail out books ... but I do expect it to be mailed more or less on the day that they picked. If you need all 10 or 12 days, then by all means, wait that long ... but please do get that book out by the end of that period. Really, it is only fair.) It is not like the book requestor picks the mailing day out ... the book sender does that ... and if, as a book sender, you do not think you will be able to mail the book out within those 12 days, you ought to just let the requst pass onto the next sender, instead of delaying the whole time and then not mailing it out or mailing it but waiting a long time after the period that PBS has already given you.

On the other hand, if I want to give books as gifts (and I do do this) ... I would start about 2 months before I needed the book ... to leave time to order from Amazon at the last minute if I needed to.

There are a ton of senders who will take the whole time to mail ... so you do need to account for that in any plans that you have for books. i am always pleasantly surprised when a book gets mailed to me the same day or the day after I order it ... but I don't even do that myself (usually), and it is a rare enough thing that I notice when it happens.

Just a little note here.  The distance a book has to travel may influence the liklihood of it being received quickly.  I have found that the further away a book travels the more quickly it arrives.  Seems odd but you have to understand how Media Mail works.  I live in VA - the books I get the most quickly on average come from the furthest away - like CA.  That usually insures that a book will be put on a plane.  If a book is only a state away from me, there is less liklihood that there is an airport in the area that will be used for transport.  This means it has to wait until there is room on a truck or that it gets put on something leaving someday when there is room for the Media Mail.  It may not be going in my direction at all.  Media Mail is the least likely to be thrown on a truck unless there is some room.  There are frequent reports of books taking the 'long way around.'  So I usually don't expect the books from nearby as books I'll see soon.  That doesn't mean it doesn't happen.  But it frequently does happen that I'll be waiting a while for them.  I love PBS and the inexpensive costs involved.  There is always some give and take in this system.  Want it faster?  Best bet is to order from Amazon.  It will cost more, but you'll get it really quickly.

Ruth

It was marked mailed on the 18th.  - if this is the case, I see no way that the sender is the person who had accepted on the 10th and indicated they would mail by the 14th. The system would have cancelled the request with them over the night of the 16th/morning of the 17th and the request would have been passed on to a new sender on the 17th. Which would mean you probably just chewed out someone who did exactly what you wanted them to do, mailed the day after they received the request. If you received a request on the 17th, mailed on the 18th, and then got a PM from someone asking if there was a problem because you weren't mailing on time wouldn't you think that requester was a little off their rocker and maybe avoid confrontation with them by just ignoring their PM?

I see you have a pretty low volume of trading. That probably explains your difference in thinking on "timely" handling of transactions. Its not realistic to expect someone who gets 5+ orders a week to process them as soon as they get them instead of waiting and mailing multiple orders at once.  This isn't a business trying to keep its customers happy, its a hobby for the members who fit it in when they can. As long as they are meeting the deadlines in the system they are doing nothing wrong. Since it looks to me like the first person did not meet that deadline, that person deserves your annoyance (but the person sending it wouldn't). If the timeline isn't what it appears and it is somehow the first sender who marked it mailed, then they met their deadline and that's all they are required to do. What's dinking to you might be called dealing with life to them.