False bookings, and the short note the house keeps about one

A false booking is not the same as a booking that goes wrong. Flights are delayed, travellers fall asleep, plans change; none of that makes a booking false. The term covers something narrower, and it is set out here so that nobody who books honestly has any reason to worry about it.

The four criteria

A booking is false if any one of these is true:

• it was made under a name that is not the client's own;
• it came from a phone number or profile belonging to someone else;
• it was made as a joke;
• a no-show followed one of the three above.

A missed booking on its own meets none of these. A traveller who booked in their own name, then slept through the knock after a long flight, has made an ordinary cancellation, handled on the notice scale like any other.

What the house writes down

Where a booking does meet one of the criteria, or where a visit is closed because a limit your therapist set was pressed, the house writes a brief internal note. It sets down the date, a line on what took place, and the name and number that made the booking. It is held for twelve months, it is never shared, and it answers one question only: whether a further booking from that name or number is accepted.

Your rights over the note

You may object to a note, or ask for it to be corrected or deleted. The privacy page explains how. If what happened looks like a crime, the house may take it to the police.

Why it exists

A booking at an airport room means a therapist travelling a long way at night on the strength of a message. A false booking wastes that journey and the hour held for it, and it puts someone at a door that nobody intends to open. The note is there so that it does not happen twice. A traveller who books in their own name and is in the room when she knocks will never meet it.