Unauthorised Nursery Fees

vikingaero

I've had problems with our nursery fees in the past. Some months they don't take the direct debit and call me up and ask for a debit card payment. Seems to me that fees/accounts of most nurseries are a little scatty.

But I think Jezbenbow is being a little too gung ho. Go and talk to the nursery manager first!

exel1966

Jezbenbow wrote: »

Thanks for the reply opinions4u. However, you are actually wrong.
You see, I have spoken to someone in the know (legally speaking) this morning.

I'm going to ask for the money to be returned and if they refuse I'll pay write out an N1 Claims Form and pay £30 to claim the money back through the courts. It's not a lot of money but I want to make a point.

The thing is, this isn't the first time we've been messed around by them and our little 'un has only been there 15 months. I have no faith in their system and I am checking our account every couple of weeks just to make sure that they aren't helping themselves to our hard earned cash.

I think your 'someone in the know' actually knows very little judging by the advice given.

From what I've read, you've received some perfectly good advice from the contributions here.
Personally I believe it could simply be down to misinterpretation of the DD of when collections and misunderstanding the letter explaining their increased advance payments.

If you're not happy with their collections system is there another way you can pay ? Standing Order perhaps which puts you in FULL control of the payment or via manual BACS/Cheque/Cash ?

jamesd

You are paying in advance so your August payment is for September's fees at the new September rate. Those are a Pound a day higher so you should have expected that your direct debit in August would be 20 higher to cover that increase. They did it in two parts, perhaps because of processing convenience during the transition, but that doesn't change the basic fact that they simply charged you the right fee for the period the August payment is covering.

Assuming that the letter you received was ten days in advance of the increased charge being taken from your account they have fully complied with the requirements of the Direct Debit Guarantee and that letter was an appropriate notice of modification of your direct debit mandate, allowing the higher cost to be taken for fees covering days from 1 September. Your bank shouldn't accept a request from you to refund the extra payment, though they may do so anyway, ignoring the facts.

Going to the county court is a waste of money. You'll lose and have to pay their costs, because they seem to have acted with appropriate notice and taken the amount they gave notice of.

I don't know how you managed to read their letter saying that the cost of the service would be a Pound higher as meaning it would only go up a month later for you but however you did so, you came to the wrong conclusion. Just accept that you got it wrong and move on. None of us is perfect and this time it happens that it's you who made a mistake. It happens and it'll happen to you and all of us again from time to time.

If their letter didn't include an explicit statement that for those paying in advance the higher payment would be in the month earlier because that covers the new fee you might suggest that they include that in subsequent letters about fee changes. Just to reduce the chance of others being surprised in the future.