To feel annoyed with the childcare voucher company for this, and has anybody else experienced similar issues?

[Loopylala7]

I was left reeling this morning after dropping my DC to nursery, the very lovely lady who runs it ran out after me to ask what the situation was with my vouchers. I was a bit confused, as I have been using them for a long time now, and whilst I have made the odd phone call here and there I have just set it up, and said that I wanted it to run until I instruct them any differently.

I have been on Mat leave in-between, and for 1 month I was not entitled, but rang up and sorted it out at both ends, that was just before Christmas, and I reinstated it as I was told to do so on my return to work. Anyway, fast forward to this morning. Very confused (and embarrassed), I ring the childcare voucher people up, and turns out, even though my employer has been paying the money into the account, and my account is set up with the nursery, they have stopped paying it in? WTF springs to mind? The lady on the other end of the phone told me that I had a surplus building, and did I want to to release it?!

When I said that I was shocked that the money had stopped being paid over (about 4 months it would seem), apparently its my fault for not checking, so I'm told. They want me to take responsibility for paying the money into the nursery, as it is my money after all??? there was me thinking it was a tax saving specifically to be paid direct to a child care service provider, one of which I have given details and asked them to pay, EVERY MONTH.

The nursery informed me this is quite a common thing to happen, and that the voucher system is a thorn in their sides. Apparently the voucher people will not speak to the nursery about any such situation either, they have to approach the parent.

I hate the concept of being in debt, especially when I'm oblivious to the circumstances happening in the first place. To add to this, the same morning I received my usual monthly email from them to say that my voucher had come through, and it was showing on my payslip as having gone out too. I mean if you tell a company pay each month until I tell you otherwise, surely that doesn't mean, stop paying them???? AIBU?!!! Has this happened to anyone else?

[PannaDoll]

I think YABU but only because I don't recall being able to set up indefinite payments. From memory, I could only set up ten or so payments before having to reconstruct the voucher people.

Each month I would receive one email to say they'd received the funds from work and another to say they'd released them to nursery. I was able to log on and re-instruct the month I didn't receive the second email.

[Loopylala7]

I spoke to them in February though PannaDoll???

[GiddyOnZackHunt]

But you effectively came out of the scheme for 1 month? In which case yes you have to set it up again so YABU.
However if you are worried about credit records then I doubt there will be any come back especially if you apologise and explain to the nursery.

[Loopylala7]

So I set it up again in February (4 months ago) and said I wanted them to pay the nursery the money thats coming in, and according to PannaDoll you can set up to 10 payments, why the heck have none been paid? I specifically asked them to pay the nursery in my phone call. I was never told, you have to call us up once a month?!

[GiddyOnZackHunt]

Well complain but it really isn't a big deal.

[Loopylala7]

It's embarrassing, and actually I think I will complain.

[OhMittens]

Calm down, it's really common, the nursery will have seen this time and again. It's a simple phone call to the voucher company to ask them to reinstate payments for the maximum term available (think it's 10 months or 12 months) then diarise for next year to make the same call again for the next 10 or 12 months. Job done, now what's for dinner?

[RooftopCat]

I used the vouchers years ago and never had this problem. Money paid to nursery every month and didn't have to phone up to reconfirm at any point.
It's like a direct debit - I don't check them constantly, only every few months. Sounds like a shit system if it's common for the money not to reach the nursery.
Maybe the voucher company needed the instruction in writing??
I'm surprised the nursery took so long to inform you.

[snowglobemouse]

left reeling? really?

[SycamoreMum]

I'd complain OP - verbally and in an email.

[PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom]

It is an administration cock up. By all means complain, but your emotional reaction is out of all proportion. Reeling?

[PannaDoll]

I do it all online and have never phoned them. It works for me.

[JemimaPuddlePop]

I agree with the pp - it's an admin error or oversight. A pita but not something to generate such an extreme reaction so yabu.

Presumably you now have £££ sitting in your voucher account so just pay a lump sum to the nursery to catch up, apologise to them and move on.

I use vouchers but log on every month and make a manual payment to my cm which I prefer.

I also think the nursery are being a little ur for not notifying you the first month a payment didn't arrive.

[CobbOnn]

PITA but all you need to do is go online and make the oneoff payment to sort out the back log, then check that regular payments are set up. Would probably take less time than it did to write your OP.

[AmyElliotDunne]

Yanbu to expect the payments to have been made after you had instructed them, however, it's nothing to be embarrassed about, the nursery know these voucher companies can be up unreliable.

I'm a CM and if a voucher payment didn't come through I would notice that month and ask the parents concerned to contact the voucher company. If the nursery haven't noticed this shortfall in 4 months then their own lax book keeping is to blame!

[OhtoblazeswithElvira]

I do it all online and the same thing happened to me. The voucher company were cheerfully oblivious. I just had to redo the instruction that I had redone already...My nursery also took months to tell me (WHY?).

So yanbu. Yet another public function being run by private companies that cannot manage a simple instruction. IIRC it takes about 2 weeks for the money to reach the nursery's account after it leaves mine - there is no reason why it should take more than a day. No doubt someone's profiting from this transfer.

[slightlyeggstained]

This is making me think I should check my vouchers. What company is it OP?

[Loopylala7]

Funnily enough it was computer share... OhtoblazeswithElvira I'm starting to question the whole length of time transfers take to...

[PurpleCrazyHorse]

I logged on and did a manual payment every month to our CM. That way, I knew I'd done it.

[Marynary]

This happened to me many years ago. The childcare voucher people had the nerve to insist that it was my fault because they were obviously following my instructions. I asked the woman on the phone if she really thought I would tell them to take money from my employer and keep it for themselves rather than giving it to the nursery

[Marynary]

It was computershare by the way (then called busy bees).