In November I sent out a batch of 22 books at once.  Normally, I ship with printed postage through the site then drop it in a blue box on the way to work.  However, for the big batch of books, it was going to cost me about $12 more to use printable postage.  So, I cheaped out.  Now, even though it's been literally YEARS since I've had books not arrive, I'm waiting on 3 to still be marked received.  I did mail from the post office, so I do have tracking, which I shared with each of the receivers.  All 3 of the books are showing received according to the tracking, but they say they have not gotten them.  Is anyone else having this issue with the postal service delivering way late, or am I just learning my lesson about why I should always use printable postage?

Usually when I send a book and tracking shows it's been received and I send a note with the tracking number to the requester, they respond within a day or so saying they've received the books. 

I do what Pat does asking the member to PM me back ASAP if they have NOT received the book so that I can take my receipt back to the PO to put a tracer on the package. I don't mean the last as a threat, but it usually gets the books marked received and I haven't had to take receipts back to the PO to put a tracer on a package yet.

I actually have done that, messaged both receivers (one package had 2 books).  The one person replied she didn't have it yet, and the other has been borderline rude, saying she'd mark it received when it got there, but she claims it hasn't.  I've messaged them both twice now, once just after they should have arrived, and now about 10 days later.  I don't think I'm being pushy, but I don't want to lose out on 3 credits for books showing as delivered before Thanksgiving.  I've never had this issue before, but I guess I'm going to be out almost the same amount (a little less) in credits as what I "saved" in printable postage.  Oh, well. 

Marya--I may have to do the tracker thing.  I've never done it before, but I do still have my receipt.

You are not being pushy by asking ten days later - they are both showing as delivered more than a week ago and should be investigated now.

The holidays are the busy time for the PO so it does seem like a better time to use printable postage, but that is a lot of money to spend "just in case". There are plenty of new postal workers and others are just overwhelmed. I would not be surprised to have something marked as delivered a day or two before it actually showed up. Ten days is way too long, though, and it is time to get those looked into. I'd go in person if you can since the phone lines are likely to be busy right now as well.

It is also worth asking PBS to credit you since you have tracking that shows the dates.

Keep the receipt and use the 'contact us' button to send PBS  links to the usps tracking pages showing the books marked as delivered. As long as you have the tracking info to show they usually will credit you. Tell them you did contact the receiving members with the information and their responses.

If I remember correctly, you need to wait about 7 days before contacting a member about a book delivered, for which receipt wasn't acknowledged. Then you need to send a PM to the person you mailed the book to.  I always provide the tracking info, as in "USPS tracking reports the book was delived on MM/DD at #:## am/pm. Please acknowledge receipt so I can use the credit." It almost always results in the book being acknowledged and me receiving the credit.

If there is no response, do it again after another 7 days. If no response then, contact the PBS staff. In every case where I had to do that, the PBS staff sent me the credit.

It's also possible that the packages were delivered to the wrong address.  Most larger towns have scanners that provide a GPS location for where the package was scanned as delivered.  You might be able to get that info at your loal PO, or at least ask if it is available.  So sorry this happened to you...

I say, "Just dropping a note to make sure you got the book.  According to USPS, it was delivered on XX/XX/XXX.  Is that's not the case, please let me know so I can get a trace started on it."  100% of the time, they've been marked "received" within short order.