Cash left in your ParentPay account? How to get it back after term ends - MSE News

Former_MSE_Naomi

As the school year comes to an end, parents who use online payments provider ParentPay to pay for school lunches and trips may have leftover credit sitting in their accounts - here's how to check and get a refund...

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'Cash left in your ParentPay account? How to get it back after term ends'

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RaspberryFool

Craftily, our daughter was removed before the term ended - so it wasn't possible to see her closing balance.

lbc1230

I have just tried this and got a message saying my balance is too small to withdraw - I have £10.65 on there. That doesn't seem right that they can hold onto that. Not a lot of money individually but if they are holding on to lots of parents' cash that is quite a tidy sum in the bank earning them interest. Anyone else had this problem and how can we get our money back? Thanks.

hygge123

Me too. My balance is less than £2.00, but multiply that by 1000s of parents, and that's an awful lot of money someone is pocketing.

lbc1230

I had to contact the finance office at the school and ask them to refund the balance to my parentpay account. They have now down that and I have been able to withdraw my funds. Seems an awful lot of hassle if every parent has to do it this way and many won't bother for small amounts - which is probably what PP want as that way they earn more interest on the funds which are not being used. They don't make this very clear on their website - i.e. that you can't withdraw without contacting the school first.

vicale1

Do you lose the money at the end of term or does it roll over.?

lesleystrawson

lbc1230 wrote: »

I had to contact the finance office at the school and ask them to refund the balance to my parentpay account. They have now down that and I have been able to withdraw my funds. Seems an awful lot of hassle if every parent has to do it this way and many won't bother for small amounts - which is probably what PP want as that way they earn more interest on the funds which are not being used. They don't make this very clear on their website - i.e. that you can't withdraw without contacting the school first.

This is exactly what you should do asap. I sorted out numerous refunds for the parents e.g. Year 6 who were leaving the school and had money left in their accounts. It takes about one minute to do.

Bear in mind however that refunding parents who had deposited via Paypoint looked like a nightmare for a school to organise.

Just to note as well, - as far as I was aware, until pupils have been removed from the school roll, children should still have accounts and be able to get a refund. This is because Parentpay's data is pulled from SIMS, the school data system.