AIBU to expect a refund?

[Filterphobia]

My child has moved to secondary school. On his primary school parent pay app we had £75 credit at the end of the summer holidays before he left. I emailed and asked for this to be refunded. I had paid with childcare vouchers so expected a refund to my childcare account, I also said I would be happy if it could be credited to my younger sons account who still attends the primary.

I’ve had no reply and no refund so I’ve emailed again since the return to school, still nothing. I’m going to call them tomorrow.

AIBU to expect this refund? Is it my own fault for overpaying and I shouldn’t expect this money back?

Just trying to gauge whether I am being petty and should just forget it.

£75 isn't petty, a fiver maybe but not £75. Of course you should expect a refund or credited to your younger sons account. Childcare is expensive enough!

I always processed the refunds myself online.

@50lessfat how do I do that?

Its through Eden red childcare vouchers through my husbands work.

Thank you

I work in finance in a private school and a lot of parents send childcare vouchers to us. If they send too much, i.e. more than the cost of their wraparound care, I have no means of refunding a childcare voucher, it will just sit there until they do have some costs it can cover. If there is a sibling with eligible expenses, I would certainly move it across to cover those.

If it’s been paid for with a childcare voucher then they won’t refund it as they don’t have the “money” if that makes sense. However, they should be able to transfer to a sibling, unless the voucher is child specific which some schEmes are.

Hmm no that is not the reason we won’t refund it. We do get money from the childcare vouchers, it is definitely cash in bank to us. But the regulations are that we can only apply it to eligible expenses. We cannot simply return it to parents as that would mean the parent has essentially received some of their salary tax free but not used it towards childcare. Parents do need to accurately calculate what their care costs will be and try to ensure they get the right amount of childcare vouchers.

The only option for OP now is to have the school use the £75 to cover a siblings eligible expenses.

Yanbu to expect them to transfer the credit to your younger child's account. A refund is a lot more complicated, and giving them a range of acceptable options makes it a more time consuming task to deal with your request. Give them time.

The school could repay the money to Edenred who will then credit your childcare voucher account, but that's a bit pointless. Moving the credit to your younger son would be much more sensible - perhaps they're a bit busy with the new intake atm and will sort it out shortly. With our system we wouldn't be able to process your son as a leaver with a credit in the account.