How to Document a No-Show Customer for a Refund Dispute

You blocked the slot, drove out, waited twenty minutes, called twice. Nobody home. The lead is still charged, and the honest first thing to know is that "they didn't show up" is not a reason Thumbtack refunds on. A Thumbtack moderator has said plainly that a customer who doesn't answer calls, texts or in-app messages and is a no-show for a booked service does not qualify — and that the refund policy contains nothing about non-responsive customers at all.

That doesn't make documenting it pointless. It changes the job. Your notes aren't there to prove you were stood up; they're there to find the refundable reason sitting inside the no-show, and to hold up if the first answer is no.

The record that carries weight is the one that shows there was a real, agreed appointment. Screenshot the booking or the message where the time and address were confirmed, so the date, the slot and the customer's own words are visible in one image. If it was an Instant Book, capture the booked slot as it appeared in your calendar.

Then log the day itself as it happens, not that evening from memory: the time you arrived, the time you called, the text you sent from outside the property. A call log screenshot with visible timestamps and a text thread showing an unanswered message sent at the appointment time are two artefacts that take thirty seconds each and cannot be reconstructed three weeks later.

Keep the whole thread rather than the worst message. Pros who get denials reversed tend to be the ones who can show the exchange in which the details changed — the address that moved, the scope that grew, the number that stopped working — and you can only show that if you didn't crop it.

Thumbtack's refund request form asks you to pick one reason: Location (not in my service area), Timing (outside my availability), Job type (not in my line of work), Charged twice (duplicate job), Phone disconnected or out of service, or Reason not listed. Four of the five specific ones can be the real story behind a no-show, and each is a claim about a record rather than an opinion about a customer.

Phone disconnected is the most common one hiding here. If your call to the number on the lead returns a disconnected or out-of-service message, that is a named reason and the appointment never could have happened — capture the failed-call screen and the call log entry. Location applies when the address you were finally given sits outside the travel area configured for that service. Job type applies when what the customer wanted at the door was work you don't do. Charged twice applies when the same job billed you two leads.

If none of them fit, Reason not listed is the honest choice, and worth knowing that it's the slowest and most interpretive route — it goes to manual review rather than being checked against a rule. Filing every no-show there spends your credibility on cases the policy doesn't support, which makes it harder to be taken seriously on the ones it does.

A customer who cancels is treated differently from one who simply doesn't appear. Thumbtack's expanded cancellation policy covers an Instant Book cancelled within one response hour of booking, during response hours of 8am to 8pm — that replaced an earlier fifteen-minute window. And if a booking is made after response hours and cancelled overnight, the cost of the lead is credited to your account automatically.

So record the distinction: did they cancel, and when? A screenshot of the cancellation notice with its timestamp, next to the booking timestamp, settles a question nobody can answer later. If the cancellation landed inside that hour and no credit appeared, that's a checkable thing to raise rather than a general complaint about a wasted morning.

Refund requests go in within 45 days of the charge. A no-show is the kind of case that slips past that deadline easily, because there's no moment that forces you to act — you drive home annoyed, the week gets busy, and the lead fades. Note the charge date the same day it happens.

An approved refund posts to your Thumbtack balance as credit by default. If you want the money back on your card instead, you have to ask within 10 business days of approval. Whether the paperwork is worth it depends on the lead: prices run from single digits on small jobs to well over $100 on a large install.

A denial isn't necessarily the end. Denied requests can be disputed by email to refunddisputes@thumbtack.com, and the appeals that get somewhere are the ones that attach the evidence and argue a named reason — not the ones that restate the frustration.

Resist the temptation to escalate to your bank. A card chargeback against Thumbtack risks your account rather than recovering $85, and it forecloses the ordinary route you still had.

Document a no-show as if you'll need to prove three separate things: that an appointment existed, that you turned up, and which of Thumbtack's reasons actually explains why the job was never real. The first two are screenshots taken the same day. The third is the one that decides the outcome.

RefundMyLead works on the pile you already have — the booking screenshot, the call log, the message thread — identifies which of Thumbtack's reasons your facts support, and writes the request in the structure its reviewers read.