Cancellation and Refund Policy

This page sets out exactly when a PeerQube session can be cancelled, when you get your money back, and what happens if something goes wrong with a session. It forms part of our Terms and Conditions.

Cancelling more than 24 hours before the session

Either the student or the tutor can cancel a confirmed booking up to 24 hours before its scheduled start time. When that happens, the student is refunded in full, automatically, to the original payment method. The time slot is released and becomes bookable again. There is no cancellation fee, and it makes no difference which side cancelled.

Inside the 24-hour window

Once a session is less than 24 hours away, it can no longer be cancelled through the Service by either side, and the payment is not automatically refundable. This is deliberate: at that point the tutor has committed the time and turned away other bookings for it. If the session then doesn't happen, because the tutor doesn't show up or something else goes wrong, that is handled through a report, described below, not through cancellation.

If your tutor doesn't show up

You can file a no-show report from your booking page starting 30 minutes after the session was due to begin. An admin reviews the report, and may ask for evidence, including a recording of the session, which is why tutors acknowledge a recording policy before they can take bookings.

If the report is upheld, the admin decides two things separately: what consequence the tutor faces (a warning, a strike, a suspension, or a permanent ban) and whether to refund the student for that booking. A refund is not automatic on an upheld report, and a report can be upheld without one; equally, a refund can be approved alongside nothing more severe than a warning. Where a refund is approved, it is for the full amount paid.

Strikes accumulate on an account. A 3rd strike automatically becomes a temporary suspension, and a 4th is a permanent ban. If a report is not upheld, no refund is issued and the tutor is paid as normal once the hold lifts.

The deadline for filing a report: 24 hours

A report about a session, for any reason and not only a no-show, must be filed within 24 hours of the time the session was scheduled to end. After that the booking can no longer be reported, and no refund can be issued through this process. This deadline exists so that a tutor who has done the work isn't left waiting indefinitely to find out whether they're getting paid.

How a report holds up a payout

PeerQube holds the money for every session for 25 hours after the session ends before releasing it to the tutor. That hold is one hour longer than the 24-hour reporting deadline on purpose, so the window to report a session has always fully closed before anyone is paid for it.

If a student files a report against their tutor for a no-show, misconduct, or inappropriate behaviour, that booking's payout is held until an admin resolves the report, however long that takes. If the report is upheld, the student is refunded and the payout does not go out. If it isn't upheld, the payout is released on a later run.

Free first sessions

Some tutors offer a free first session in a course. No payment is taken for those, so there is nothing to refund if one is cancelled, but the same 24-hour cancellation window and the same reporting rules apply.

How refunds are paid

Refunds are issued through Stripe, our payment processor, back to the card or payment method used for the original booking. We can't send a refund anywhere else. How long it takes to appear on your statement after we issue it is up to your bank or card issuer, and is typically a few business days. Where this policy says a refund is automatic, that is what normally happens; if an automatic refund doesn't go through, we're alerted and issue it by hand, and you're told either way. If two students end up paying for the same slot at once, only one booking is created and the other is refunded.

Questions or a refund dispute

If you think a refund has been handled incorrectly, contact us at inquiries@peerqube.com with your booking details and we'll look into it.