ParentPay Reviews 4,442

Always helpful staff no matter how simple the task is

I would give 0 stars if I could. Absolutely appalling customer service. Trying to pay for items on my account since AUGUST, the balance is over £100 now. In a moment I won't be in a position to clear the balance. Endless correspondence with Customer Service asking to prove that I am not able to make payments... Really, have you seen my account? Forwarded number photographs, screenshots, still not enough. Asked the school to support me in solving this issues, apparently someone from customer service advised them that the issue is solved, of course and indeed, not true. Putting me in a position where I look like a person who avoids payments for services I've received from school. Words cannot describe how disappointed, frustrated and disgust I am.

Pathetic website! Everyone time I try to make a payment I get a message saying “a fatal error has occurred”.

Because parents have all the time in the world to deal with fatal errors!!!!! Awful website - no idea why schools tolerate these guys.

Appalling service, there were issues online on 12th Nov which meant that one of mypayments didn't go through (the request didnt reach my bank so the payment failed).Instead of parentpay contacting me they cancelled a payment to the school. There is no contact number to get in touch with parent pay so I have had numerous emails and still not resolved the issue.

New term starts, and suddenly I’m unable to book lunch for my child. I raised a support ticket with ParentPay, only to get a generic reply telling me to check with the school. The school then had to contact ParentPay to investigate the issue. It’s been three weeks now, with both the school and I chasing ParentPay, but there’s been no response or resolution. The service is absolutely terrible and unprofessional. This level of poor support is unacceptable, and I’ll be raising this issue within the school community to advocate for a change in software provider.

Quite how this company has a contract with any UK school is beyond me, given the level of service (or lack of it)they provide. Woefully inadequate hosting / servers means the site is frequently down, so I'm unable to top up my kid's lunch money. Sort it out!

This web has very bad service, I don't know why the school organiser forced students to use it, they should have alternative solutions for it, never worked as described, frequently occurring errors, I am using it because no other choice, school is also to be blamed for the use of this server.

Once set up PP is easy to access and very easy to navigate around all round user friendly

This app gets worse every time they upgrade it, which seems to be on a very regular basis. It was ok when I first used it 9 years ago but over time it’s got less and less user friendly. Links don’t work and it generally looks 3rd rate.

Absolutely useless platform, always down or offline & slow to respond when it isn't. They need to invest some serious money and expertise to improve it, and quickly.

Joke of a company/website, it works less than it doesn’t work. I would rather go back to cash than to use this failing website. Auto top up doesn’t work right either, leaving my child without dinner money and before you say, YES there is plenty of funds in my bank :) try and use the website and it’s forever down leaving me unable to log in.

If I could give 0 stars I would, 1 is being too generous

Unacceptable Delays and Inefficient Service from ParentPay Platform!!!!!!

I’m extremely disappointed with ParentPay's inefficient platform and their bank's unacceptably slow processing times. It is incomprehensible that a payment platform that owns a bank takes forever to clear even a simple transaction, which often leaves my account in inadequate or insufficient funds. This constant delay severely impacts my ability to manage my finances effectively.

The platform is becoming increasingly useless because of these issues. To make matters worse, the website offers no helpful solutions, and it is practically impossible to speak to a human representative for assistance.

If you are unable to provide us with a reliable and efficient payment platform that can process transactions within a reasonable timeframe and provide proper customer support, I SUGGET YOU SIMPLY GIVE AN DIRECT BANK ACCOUNTS TO YOUR BUSINESS SO WE CAN EFFICIENTLY MAKE STANDING ORDERS FOR OUR DEDUCTIONS AND BE SURE THE BANKS WILL BE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN YOU!

IT’S THAT COMMON SENSE AND AND YOU GET YOUR MONEY, I CARELESS THE POLITICS!

Good when it works.Unfortunately most of te mornings I can’t even login and it’s really slow. I mean I can’t see the reason why schools shouldn’t take cash.What was wrong with it?Some people have to go to work and I don’t have time and nerves to waste n this bull…

Absolutely deplorable experience. £180 paid to cover an upcoming school trip was made on the ParentPay website and deducted from my bank account. However the shoddy ParentPay website claim there was an 'error' and no payment was received. Eventually found how to contact ParentPay on their woefully designed website. Email form was then duly filled in, and then followed up by me with a emailed screenshot of the payment being debited.

ParentPay note the query but do not provide an SLA for when they will get back to me.

I've now been waiting a week with no response. Searched online and finally found a telephony number, only to be told 'we don't help parent over the phone." Yeah, of course not, why would you actually want to help parents, after all.

Chaser email now sent so we'll see how long it takes to get any sort of resolution. Meanwhile, I'm £180 out of pocket and we've now passed the deadline my child's school set for payment of the trip.

I wonder about families out there in similar circumstances who will struggle to suck up losing £180 even temporarily as it sits gathering interest in whatever place 'Parentpay' have it?

The whole site is shoddy and feels like it's another example of government tender out to whatever cowboy is willing to put in the lowest offer.

Utterly appalling, terrible, unintuitive UI, no app - just have to use the website - best they can do is save the website to your Home Screen! Confirmations and permissions that you give still show as ‘needed by x date’ even when you’ve given them, statements only show recent transactions even when you choose a longer period, when you’re in the detail of a payment and press Back it doesn’t take you to the list you were on before but returns you to the home screen.. I could go on and on and on. It makes me cry with rage to have to use this. Who designed it!

Shocking. It would ve easier to access the crown jewels. Unituative. Dispise the system. Collective experience over time

There has to be option to give 0 stars, 1 star is even too much! I will report them to the fraud police! My child did not eat ''Main Meal'' and ''Cheese Roll'' in her morning break time, but it appeared on ParentPay report and also they took the money for that. They are cheating and doing fraud. Many other children is saying the same thing. Monday I am going to school with police!!! They are doing fraud. Simple as that. This is not the first time, this is consistent fraud!!! So please tell me, why dont you give receipts to the children??? I need receipt in my child's hand so that there is proof document which is in my child's hands APPROVED by a child and given to compare with app information!

How many people have been cheated??! I cannot begin to imagine! However, this is unfair and God will remove ParentPay from shools, as they abused their position by using kids! You do not do fraud using children! No way!

Child trying to use his card at school to pay for lunch. He has £10 balance on ParentPay but the card isn’t updating. Absolute shambles. It’s always been an appalling system

Since setting up one click payments they have been taking unauthorised payments from my account that don’t even show on my daughters balance. Emailed them and they never got back to me and no phone number. It’s disgusting!