Profiles and claims

Every business on Bookables has one listing: one page, at one permanent web address, that is the same page whether or not the business has joined. Some listings are made by the business when it signs up. Others we create first, from information the business has already made public, such as its name, trade, address, opening hours, phone number and website, so that people looking for that kind of business can find it and get in touch.

A listing we created and nobody has claimed is an unclaimed listing. It shows only what is public: the name, what the business does, where it is, and how to contact it. It has no bookings, no prices, no reviews and no messaging, and it says plainly that the business can claim it. Nothing on an unclaimed listing suggests the business is a Bookables customer, and we never charge a business for an unclaimed listing or for its presence once claimed.

We do not create listings from private information, and we never show an email address on an unclaimed listing.

Claiming is free and takes a few minutes. You search for your profile, confirm it is yours, sign in or create an account, and agree to the terms for businesses. Claiming attaches the listing to a business run by you: nothing is copied or rebuilt, the web address stays the same, and the listing’s name, location, hours, photos and contact details become the starting point for your business on Bookables. From then on you control everything on the page, and the business starts on the Free plan.

When you claim a listing you confirm that:

• you own or manage that business, or have the owner’s permission to claim it on their behalf; and
• you will keep the listing accurate, and correct or remove anything on it that is wrong.

Claiming a business you do not run is a breach of our Terms. When we find a false claim, we detach the listing from that business, and we may close the account that made it. The person who really runs the business can then claim it.

How we check. Most claims are attached at once, on your confirmation, and are recorded against your account. If one person makes more than five claims in a day, the sixth and any after it are held, and a member of our team looks at them before they are attached. While a claim is held there is nothing to do: the business appears in your account once it is approved. We may also ask you for evidence that you run the business at any time, such as a code sent to the phone number on the listing, a line added to the website on it, or a document, and a claim can be undone if that evidence does not arrive.

Already claimed. If someone else has claimed your business, the page will say so. You can ask the person who claimed it to add you to their team, which is the right answer when it is a colleague, or report that it was claimed by someone who does not run the business. We look at every such report and, where the claim was false, undo it.

Anyone can report a listing, claimed or not, without an account. The link is on every listing. You can tell us that:

• the business is closed or has moved;
• some details are wrong, such as the address, phone number, hours or what it offers, and what they should say instead;
• it is not a real business, or duplicates another page;
• something on the page should not be there, such as offensive words or photos that are not the business’s to use;
• someone who does not run the business has claimed it; or
• something else.

Every report gets a reference and is read by a member of our team. We check what we can against public information and, where the listing is claimed, may ask the business. We do not tell a business who reported it. We fix wrong details, remove content that should not be there, mark a closed business as closed, and undo false claims. We make no promise about how quickly a report is acted on, but most are handled within a few working days.

A problem with a booking, rather than with the listing, is reported from the booking itself, where both sides’ records are to hand.

A business that does not want an unclaimed listing on Bookables can ask for it to be taken down, using Report this profile on the page itself. Because only the business can ask, we confirm the request against the contact details already on the listing, by a code sent to its phone number or a line added to its website, and a member of our team checks it. Once confirmed, the page comes off Bookables and is not created again. A claimed listing is the business’s own page; it comes down when the business is deleted from its settings.

We decide whether a listing appears on Bookables and how it is ranked, and we may remove or hide any listing that breaks our Terms, is not a real business, or is the subject of unresolved reports. A claimed listing with no sign-in and no bookings for a year is shown as possibly out of date and ranks with unclaimed ones. It stays the business’s.

We do not decide who runs a business. Where two people each say a business is theirs, we look at what is public and at what each can show us, and we may hold the listing unclaimed until it is clear. Where the dispute is really about the business itself, that is between the people involved and the law, not something a listing can settle.

Every claim, removal request and report is recorded with who made it and when, and the operator’s decision is recorded with theirs. If you disagree with a decision about a listing, you can ask for it to be looked at again by a different member of our team, once.

If you cannot use the link on a listing, or your request does not fit the reasons above, contact us via our contact page with the listing’s web address and what you need.