Have you ever ordered a book but realized you already own it or got tired of the member from not responding that you went ahead and ordered it off of another website?  I just realized that but I can't cancel the order.  the person was waiting way to long to respond.  I came on tonight and they finally said they would mail it; however amazon has already mailed the book.  my question i sent them a message.  Have you ever had problems with members refusing to cancel the order even after you ask? I dont want the same book.

The system is set up that we can cancel the order up until the point where the label has been printed.  After that, the risk the book has already has postage or has been mailed goes way up.  It sounds like you missed the window before the label was printed. 

I would not be willing to cancel a book where I had printed the postage. 

In addition, you are asking this member to sacrifice their position in FIFO line.  It was your choice, your responsibility.  Harsh, but true.

You can ask, but if the person already printed (or affixed) postage to the package then it's probably not going to be cancelled.

I know how it feels to want to read a certain book NOW but this site is about patience. The sender is given a time limit and some people use up as much time as possible because they might want to ship a bunch together or they can only get out once a week.

I think it will depend if the member already printed and paid for postage. It isn't fair to them to lose money as you changed your mind. Sennders have so many days to accept a request and so many days to mail it after that. All you can do is ask for them to cancel. If it was a FIFO book they might have had it on their shelf for a while as it worked its way up.

I use printable postage so I would not cancel an order if I was asked as the postage isn't refunded. If you wanted to cancel a book I had on my shelf three years and finally made it to the top I wouldn't cancel it for you either.

If the sender does agree to cancel, remember that your order will either be passed along to a new sender, or you will be put back on the wish list. So make sure to check back frequently so that you can cancel the new request or remove yourself from the wish list.

The site gives a member 5 days to accept a request and another 5 days to mail a book. If you are not willing to wait that long, then PBS is probably not the best source for that book. Those are the terms you agree to when you become a member. You should ALWAYS cancel the request here before ordering it elsewhere.

If you end up getting 2 copies because you have ordered another elsewhere while still having it requested here, then hopefully you understand that is your own mistake and you will still be required to mark the book requested here as received and give the member credit. It really isn't fair to the sender if they have already invested money in wrapping and postage when all they were doing is following site procedure. The sender also will lose their place in the line for request on the book by asking them to cancel, so it is all around unfair to request that they cancel it at this point.

I am also a user of PBS postage so as soon as I've printed the label I would not cancel a request unless the requester wanted to give me the credit anyway to reimburse the wasted postage.

At any time until that label is printed,  you can cancel it.  The time to do so would have been before you ordered it from Amazon.