I was able to snag the book from the mailbox before the mailperson came.   How do I get this to cancel without losing my place in FIFO?

I'm not sure I understand. If you received a request and printed the wrapper, it can't be cancelled by the requester. The cancel button disappears on their end once you print it. That's to protect people from wasting postage or even the book, if it has been mailed already. 

If what you mean is that the person requested for you to cancel and you agreed, I believe you'd have to use the "contact us" link, explain what happened, and request that your book be placed back at the front of the line.

After you print the label, the receiver cannot cancel the book.  Only the sender can.  After it is marked mailed, then the only way to cancel is for the sender to contact PBS and ask for it.

I would think you would still be due a credit from the requestor, since you cannot cancel after the postage is printed.   You are out the money for the postage.   If you had mailed it like you were supposed to, the requestor would have to give you the credit when the book was received.  They are lucky that you read their PM wanting to cancel....but I still think it's too late.  You should be compensated in some way since you already paid to mail their book.

I don't know what the official guidelines are.  But the requestor is the one who is in the wrong here.  I guess they could just refuse the package when it came.  But this book was already paid to be sent to the person.  It's a little late to be canceling.

I personally would just tell the requestor that it was too late, the book had been mailed. As others have said, once the wrapper is printed they lose the ability to cancel and PMing you to cancel is not acceptable either. As Lisa said, you will have to use the "contact us" button to ask the Team to put your book back at the front of the line, which you have no guarantee they will do -- this is exactly one of the many reasons why once the wrapper is printed the requestor can not cancel -- that is even why there is a one-hour buyer's remorse period before the request is sent to the next person in the FIFO line. I would stand firm and tell the requestor NO!

Thanks for your thoughts.

I used stamps so I can hopefully peel them off and use them on something else.   Seems pointless to go ahead and mail since they don't want it.

I have submitted a request thru contact PBS to see if they can cancel to save my FIFO place. 

Once again thanks for your responses.  I couldn't find anything in help docs on dealing with this.

Be careful in peeling the stamps off.  Even if they haven't been used, the PO gets really picky about those stamps.  The reasoning being that sometimes the stamps don't get canceled and people peel them off the envelope, package, etc., and try to reuse them.  As the PO doesn't know that you didn't use them, if they look like they've been peeled off, they can and sometimes do refuse to let the package, letter be mailed with those stamps.  I've seen it happen.  Pat

I was going to say the same thing as Pat.  The PO might think you are trying to reuse stamps that went through the mail already. 

Personally, once a package has postage on it, even if it's just stamps, I mark the book mailed. So I don't even get why you had it in your mail box already and hadn't marked it mailed.  Since the book was actually mailed even if the mail man hadn't come yet.

I also agree with Pat.  Unused postage such as yours is ok, but often looks like used postage.  I recently received a PBS book mailed with stamps that were not cancelled enroute.  DH wanted to re-use them...I declined, cancelled or not they were used and USPS provided service for the postage as purchased.  If USPS has not provided the service (say for return envelopes never used) I've been known to cut off the stamps to use for a different purpose.

FYI - It is illegal to reuse postage stamps, even if they haven't been canceled by the PO.  Pat

You could always simply keep the stamps on the package and when the book gets requested again simply change the address.

The reason I hadn't marked it mailed yet is because I don't marked mailed until I have actually mailed.    Something might happen to interupt the intended mailing so this is my personal safeguard to make sure I got it done.    I literally walked package to Mailbox came back into house went to computer to mark mailed saw the Pm icon looked at it first and it was from requestor.  So since she didn't want the book I went back to mailbox and got it out.

Appreciate all the concern about the stamps being messed-up.  So just as ds36 suggested  that is exactly what I decided to do.  Rather than try to remove stamps I'm just going to leave book wrap as is then put next requestors address on it.

If you used the PBS label you will have to block out the bar code that prints. and the transaction number.  Even on labels that don't have DC-there's  bardcode that prints under the address it's going to. That barcode has info in it about where it's going.  The sorters don't look at the address in the beginning, that bar code is scanned and that tells them which bin the book belongs.  A postal clerk told me this when I asked her why packages seem to go in the wrong direction a lot. She said it's because the scanner misreads that barcode under the address due to too much ink, fading ink or a wrinkle or something.

Also if the book wasn't WL, you will now be at the end of the FIFO line.

Not that one should re-use stamps that made it through without being cancelled, but I have heard that the adhesive on at least some of the self-sticking stamps is something that does not loosen in water.  (I haven't tried it, but my philatelist friend has mentioned this.)

PMing you to cancel is not acceptable either.

It's okay to PM someone to ask if they are willing to cancel -- sometimes they haven't applied postage yet, and it's no big deal.  And it's okay for the sender to say no.

And when someone asks you to cancel a transaction, it's perfectly okay to send a note -- feedback, actually --  to the PBS Team (via the contact us link) and ask them to cancel it.  If you explain that the other person asked you to cancel, they can cancel it from the other person's end so that you don't lose your spot in line.  Sounds like that may have been what you did.

If you explain that the other person asked you to cancel, they can cancel it from the other person's end so that you don't lose your spot in line.

I have been told that they specifically do not do this, and the sender must always request that the transaction be cancelled. (In my case, I also had PMs from the sender .... but they told me that they will not cancel a transaction unless the sender requests it.

But when they do, yes, they can restore everyone's correct place in line.