How cancellations and refunds work.

The general position

Marketfolk isn’t the merchant of record for pitch payments and doesn’t hold maker money at any point, so Marketfolk can’t independently issue a refund. Every cancellation and refund is between the maker and the organiser, following the policy the organiser displayed before the maker paid. This page describes what’s reasonable to expect by default, not a Marketfolk-enforced rule.

If a maker cancels after paying

Whether a maker gets any money back depends entirely on the organiser’s own cancellation policy for that event, shown before payment. Marketfolk doesn’t set a platform-wide default window — this is deliberately left to each organiser to state clearly on their own event, since they’re best placed to judge their own planning and re-fill constraints. One thing to know regardless of an organiser’s specific policy: the organiser’s Stripe processing fee on the original payment isn’t typically returned by Stripe on a refund, so a “full refund” from the organiser’s own pocket may still leave them out of pocket for that fee.

If an organiser cancels a confirmed event

Makers who’ve paid should be refunded in full, since they didn’t receive what they paid for. Marketfolk expects this as a baseline; it’s the organiser’s responsibility to actually process it through their Stripe account, and Marketfolk may ask about a pattern of organiser-side cancellations.

Who bears the processing cost on a refund

Stripe doesn’t return its own processing fee on a refunded payment. In practice this means:

• if an organiser cancels, the organiser typically absorbs the lost Stripe fee, since the cancellation wasn’t the maker’s doing;
• if a maker cancels within a policy that allows a refund, the organiser’s displayed policy determines whether the maker or the organiser absorbs that lost fee — Marketfolk doesn’t set this, the organiser does.

Marketfolk’s own platform fee (where one applies, per the organiser terms) is only ever charged on a completed, non-refunded booking — a fully refunded booking doesn’t carry a Marketfolk fee.

Waitlist behaviour when a spot frees up

If an accepted maker’s spot becomes available again (through cancellation, non-payment within the payment window, or a lapsed acceptance), the organiser can offer it to the next suitable maker on the waitlist, if one exists. This doesn’t create any right for a waitlisted maker to be offered a spot — it’s the organiser’s decision, same as any other application review.

Disputes between a maker and an organiser

Marketfolk isn’t a party to the agreement between a maker and an organiser and won’t arbitrate a payment or refund dispute between them. Both sides retain whatever rights they’d normally have against each other outside Marketfolk, including through their card issuer or Stripe’s own dispute process where applicable.