overpaid nursery with childcare vouchers they are refusing to pay back

[krisskross]

not sure this is the right place to post but....

last summer we accidentally overpaid the nursery through the childcare voucher scheme. we left the nursery last July and have been chasing the owner/ manager for the £500. She keeps telling us the (the voucher co) have to sort it, but they have given us very clear insrructions on what the nursery needs to do.

she is now ignoring e mails and phone calls. We have been extremely polite and not really persistent but now its pissing me off (and frankly the way she has been about it pretty much sums up the reasons why we left in first place).

Anyone got experience of this? WWYD?

Pursue through small claims, that should get her notice.

thanks five. have no experience of this at all- can you give any pointers pls?

here is the webiste with all the information. We filled ours out online, if I remember rightly the fee depends on how much you claim. This will get sent to her and she can respond and so it continues. We started ours last September and have just won, but hopefully by doing this it may give her the kick up the pants that she needs.

thats a great help five, thank you.

bumping for anyone else

Hmmm tbh I think it does have to be repaid to you through the childcare voucher scheme because the vouchers come out of your gross pay before tax so if you were to be given a refund directly of the full amount it would be like you receiving that amount of salary without paying tax on it. At my work we administered our own vouchers and if somebody overpaid their nursery, the nursery paid the money back to us, we then added it to the employees next salary so it was taxed correctly and they received the net amount extra in their next salary payment.

Yes. you have no right to that money as it was never yours in the first place - that is precisely how it works that you don't have to pay tax on the vouchers.

I suggest you call the voucher company and ask them if they can help you because the nursery don't seem willing to follow the procedure they have set out.