Cancelling a booking can cause a huge amount of inconvenience for the pet owner, who is then forced to either find a new sitter or cancel their plans. This has a negative effect on the amount of trust within our community. We recommend confirming only requests that you feel comfortable with. Once you have confirmed a booking, the pet owners are fully counting on your commitment.
We understand that there are cases in which a sitter is forced to cancel because of an emergency or unforeseen circumstances. In such cases, please inform the owner and Pawshake immediately.
Please contact us with the following information so we can issue a full refund to the pet owner:
- booking number
- reason for the cancellation
What else can I do?
If you have cancelled a booking it is good practice to offer to help the owner find a replacement sitter. This can be done by either sending them some profile links of other Pawshake sitters, or contacting sitters on Pawshake directly to speed up the communication.
While our customer support team will also do this, the process moves much faster if you start the search because you know all the details about the pets and will be able to judge which sitters are most suitable for the booking.
What penalties apply if I cancel a booking?
Depending on the circumstances of the cancellation, we may flag your account for review by our Trust and Safety team.
Account suspension or removal - If you're cancelling within 14 days of an upcoming booking, or if two bookings are cancelled within a year, our Trust and Safety team may suspend your profile for a period of time or remove your account.
If you are unable to provide a satisfactory reason for the cancellation or don’t respond to our request for more information, we will remove your profile.
While we understand that this may seem strict, we have these policies in place to ensure we only have the best quality sitters and continue to build a strong and reliable community. Which in turn means more bookings for you!
Pet Owner Cancellations
If it is the pet owner who has requested to cancel, they can do so themselves online in most cases. You can read all about it here.
Cancellation Policies
You get to choose your own cancellation policy on Pawshake and we will apply it every time a pet owner contacts us regarding a cancellation. Read more about them here. If a pet owner who is cancelling a booking with you will receive only a partial refund due to your cancellation policy, and you wish to waive it and offer them a full refund, please contact us and let us know.