TL;DR school owe me £40 dinner money, cocked up refunding it and are now ignoring my emails asking for it back, who do I speak to?
long story:
My son is 3, almost 4, and was on school dinners, however he is a very fussy eater and on the SENCO pathway. I was trying to get him to try out new foods but it didn’t end up working out as he told me a specific teacher was loud and angry at him at dinner time because of ‘yucky food’. I took this to mean he was being told off for not eating his dinner. I spoke to reception, made it clear that I know 3 year olds aren’t the most reliable narrators but I think it’s best he go on packed lunches. She told me why DS may perceive this teacher to be shouting as she’s partially deaf. That’s fine I’ll move him onto packed lunches regardless. Asked her about the £40 left in his dinner money account and she said she’d refund no problem.
I left it two weeks as one of those weeks was half term and I called up asking about my refund, she said I’d need to check my account and withdraw it from there, I was apologetic and said I hadn’t thought to check, thanks for her help etc.
I checked my account 2 days later to withdraw and my balance was 0. I emailed with screenshots asking for the details so I could contact them. She ignored this and I received no reply.
A week later I thought I’m just going to contact Parent Pay myself. They notified me that the money hadn’t been refunded, the balance had just been cleared to 0 and the school are welcome to contact them for assistance.
I forwarded this email onto the school, she replied saying leave it with me.
A week later, still nothing so I emailed again saying sorry, I know it’s a pain but have we had any movement as I’m hoping to have the money back by the next school holidays so I can book something nice for DS. that was 5 days ago and no reply.
I’ve always found the receptionist who I’ve been dealing with to be very friendly and warm and it could just be my perception but she has since started avoiding eye contact with me when she opens the school gates and when I went to drop something off for DS on world book day she opened the gate and took it off me without a word even when I’d spoken to her first and walked away to deal with something else.
I think it’s clear now I’ve been labelled a pain in the arse, which is fine, but how do I go about getting my money back? If it was a fiver I’d write it off but it’s also pissing me off that she’s almost being rude about it. Like I say, the two incidents above could be explainable or just in my head but the fact I’m getting ignored when it’s their mistake is winding me up to no end. Ed