Discussion Forums - Questions about SwapaCD

So I have mailed out something like 100 CDs in the last month or so. It's been going great - only one lost in the mail, only a few broken.

But I *AM* receiving notices about late postmarks which is really frustrating.

During the pandemic I've  been dropping my outgoing  CDs into the outgoing mailbox inside my apartment complex.

I feel like the mailman only pulls stuff out of there every other day at best, and then maybe they don't process them at the post office until the next day.

I mean, 5 or 6 out of 100 still isn't that bad, but I'm worried I'm going to get penalized in some way if it keeps happening. But on the other hand, I am not willing to leave my house and walk to the post office during a pandemic unless it's absolutely necessary.

Any advice? <3

If you're using printed postage, can you change the date printed on the label to a few days out from when you're actually mailing? I haven't sent any CDs in a few months so I can't remember what the SwapACD label screen looks like, but I know PBS does have that option on a little drop down menu on the label screen. It's okay to mail with future dated postage, but not stale postage (for that you're supposed to get a $0 strip from the PO with the current date). 

The receiver is entering the postage date when they get your package. I don't know that it really makes much difference if it's only a couple days or so. It's an autogenerated message that comes up when the dates are more that whatever was set as a threshold. So it's more of a reminder than anything else, especially for senders who actually do take too long.

PBS has relaxed mailing deadlines right now due to the pandemic, but I don't know if that's also the case here. It should be & if it's not you may want to send a message to Contact Us below to suggest it.

So I've just been buying 85 cent stamps from the post office (online not in person) and using those and it's worked out great! Just using the SACD printed sheets plus a really thick piece of cardstock folded over with each CD seems to do the trick! So I guess the postmark appears over  the stamp somewhere? :\

I guess if it continues to seem like an issue I'll reach out to them. I just was worried that if it continued, even if it's just occasionally, the system might somehow flag me as a problem.

Thanks for the reply!

Jimmy, I would like to hear more details about this situation. 

I'm not sure what more you want to hear?

I take the CD. I put it and the inner label inside a folded piece of cardstock. I trim it, and I wrap it with the outer address wrapper (or sometimes I put it inside of a slim manilla envelope and tape the address label to the outside.)

I put an 85 cent stamp on it.

I go to the lobby of my building and there is a large mailbox unit on the wall for the roughly 15 apartments in my building, plus a spot for outgoing mail with a very slim space to slide in items.

I slide all of my outgoing mail in there and the mailman theoretically checks it every day and gathers the outgoing items.

He then takes them to the post office where they are presumably cancelled by hand by the mail person who processes them.

Of the roughly 100 CDs I have mailed out in the last 45 days, there have been maybe 5 now that I've gotten a notification they were indicated by the recipient to have a late postmark.

That's about all the information I have to provide.

Would somebody explain what a "late postmark" is?  I don't think I've ever had one of the discs I've mailed out be reported that way.  In the past 12 months, I've sent out 143.  I've never seen that.  What is it?

When you print a label, you agree to mail the CD withing a specific amount of days. If you use printable postage, I think you can even select the day you will be mailing the CD. Also, once you click CD Mailed, you are told when you must mail the CD in order to earn your credit. Basically, you agree to mail the CD within a specific period of time. When the requesting member receives the CD, and marks it received, they are given the opportunity to fill out data about the delivery. For example, how it was wrapped, how much postage was used, if a SACD wrapper was used, if the address was hand-written, and the item which is causing this issue: What is the postmark, if it exists. If someone enteres a postmark when marking a CD received, SACD checks that date against the date you were "supposed" to mail the CD. If it's "late," SACD sends the sending member an email "scolding" them for mailing a CD late.

This has happened to me before and, not knowing about this or fully understanding the late postmark issue or any unintended consequences, I contacted SACD with my concerns. They explained the situatiuon and I was no longer concerned. However, I am always good about mailing CDs when I say I did (which is why I was so pertubed that someone marked it with a late postmark).

I think this is just another metric SACD uses to identify trends with specific members. If someone keeps getting late postmarks, they may contact the sending member and address the situation. But I imagine someone really has to abuse this for it to become a real issue.

Personally, I NEVER fill out the survey fields when marking a CD received (excpet maybe to thank the sending member). It's not required, and not worth my time to do so. Other members do take the time, and that's when a potential Late Postmark situation can occur. Offically, here is what SACD has to say about it:

CDs that arrive with a late postmark need to be marked received normally, and the information about the postmark should be recorded in the survey portion of the CD Received page.

• Providing the late postmark in the survey portion of the CD Received page will generate an auto-email to the sender of the CD, reminding him or her that late mailing is not acceptable at SwapaCD.
  • The email includes the information that the late postmark could have been entered in error
  • The email includes the information that sometimes postmarks are delayed a few days, even if the CD was mailed on time
  • The email includes the information that if the late mailing was agreed to by the requestor, this is not a problem
• You can contact the sender using the text box on the CD Received page:
  • Please be gentle!  You can't know what might have delayed this shipment.
• If the CD was declared Lost in the Mail and you requested a second copy because you thought the first one was really lost:
  • You can ask for your credit back in your Personal Message
  • You can note this information in the Comments box at the bottom of the CD Received page: this will go onto the sender's record.
• A pattern of late mailing will cause account suspension and possibly termination of membership
  • Sometimes late mailing happens for very good reasons, but chronic late mailing will not be tolerated

Mark, thanks for the excellent reply answering my question.  On the one hand, the idea of checking the postmark is silly.  The USPS is notorious for not doing their job well.  There is no guarantee that the package will be postmarked in timely manner, or even at all.  I suspect that when the site wrote the rules, they had not yet discovered how sloppy the PO can be.  On the other hand, the site acknowledges in the rules how a late postmark can be explained in several different ways.

On the other other hand, I've seen a large number of traders who mark the disc as mailed within just a few minutes of having printed the label.  So you know they haven't mailed it yet.  And who knows how long it will take them to get around to it.  We've all seen how long it takes some people to deal with their trading obilgations.  I've had people take days or weeks to mark a package received after delivery confirmation clearly shows when it was actually delivered.

So, over all, I think it''s a non-issue.  It's one thing for the site to keep track of it to see if a long term pattern develops.  But I don't think they should have the software set to send out the warning e-mail automatically.  Most of the time that will just alarm or anger the recipient.

I definitely mark the disc as mailed as soon as I print out the label, but that's because the rules say you should mail it within one day of marking it as mailed. When I'm printing out 20 labels at a time, I don't want to coordinate the packaging of everything and then come back and log in and mark them all as mailed again. I know that I will have them in the mailbox that day, and if for some reason I think/know I won't, I definitely don't mark them as mailed.

I guess I'm not really worried at this point that it will be an issue, but I do kind of think it would be nice for people to be thoughtful and think "Hey, this was only postmarked one day after it was supposed to be. I'll skip that part of the exit survey, it's not a big deal."

But as you've all mentioned, especially with the way the post office is operating right now, and with COVID being what it is, things are bound to be off kilter. I have mailed out packages in the last numerous months through ebay that don't get scanned in during the entire journey, resulting in paniced buyers asking me why I haven't mailed their items yet. I've got a postal claim for an item that got destroyed during shipping that the USPS website says should take 5-10 days to investigate and resolve, and it's been a month and a half and there's been no resolution on it.

We're all doing our best!