ParentPay Reviews 4,442

Awful company- app and website constantly has errors, cant log in. Need to top up son's card but can't, not first time this has happened and he has gone without lunch as school only use card for payment. Shouldn't be this difficult. Do not make it easy to contact them which means they don't care about customers who use their service - no contact number on website or app!!
Now left with no way to top up card - absolute joke!

What a sh**e of a website. Why oh why would schools use this awful company. You cannot check what meals your child has. No breakdown of expenditure. My son gets free school meals plus I top up £2.50 daily. I have never seen the £2.50 free school meals credited on parentpay. £5 a day yet he never has any money in his acct. Contacting both school and parentpay is a waste of time! Government needs to step in and ban this company from being used in schools or any public service. Disgraceful!!!

Very clear dark pattern - trying to force you into Visa's "Click to Pay" system, I presume with some sort of reward from Visa (for them, not me).

I do NOT want my details stored by Visa. I do NOT want to enroll in Click to Pay. Parent Pay have no business pushing me to use it for EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION.

I normal don't review especially negative reviews but this is one service that somehow bribe (can't imagine any other way they could have done it) their way into schools and as parent I am FORCED to use it irrespective of however poor it is, not just in one by many area it suffers the quality.

I am allowed to pay for school dinner for 1 whole week before end of Sunday but once the week started I would have no proof of clue or information which days are selected. Due to this I had to write to school and explain every time something like this happens(happed twice to me).

Parent pay is constantly getting payments wrong, not sending through meals chosen to school computers, mixing my sons up so one ends up with a payment for a club he doesn't attend and the other gets a charge for a meal he didn't have. Trying to sort out an issue with the school and parent pay for a school meal my son didn't receive and I'm told oh its this that's the problem, well no the problem is that your system is clearly flawed and run by a bunch of monkeys!!

AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL
This is the most frustrating websites i am made to interact with as a parent it is a horrible experience. Nothing ever works or goes right - your stuck in a loop between the school and parent pay shirking responsibility of whats going wrong! Can not speak to anyone - 4 days to get an email back over lunch money payment!- another 3 years of this NO THANKS!

SLOOOW FRUSTRATING INADEQUATE METHOD OF PAYMENT

What are schools thinking i have used this system from primary to secondary school. Constantly logged out of it due to bugs / fixes.
Need a password reset HAHAHAHAHA! Good luck 4 days it took for an automated link!! You have to email support no phone number to get hold of anyone! RIDICULOUS WEBSITE

One of the many awful apps/websites I am forced to interact with due to the school.

Parentpay is so opaque and difficult to use I am amazed it still exists as a thing. Infuriating.

Trying to pay for a holiday club but literally no idea how much cash is in the account or how to pay. I transferred over money from taxfree childcare and its mysteriously split into ASC and BC, which I have found out after 20 minutes and multiple drop down lists.

Whoever designed this needs to take a long hard look at themselves.

Wow, not one positive review this year!

Double charge me for a transaction because of shodily made website. Useless customer service, couldn't/wouldn't undo their error.

How a payment management service that is so universally dysfunctional and disliked by so many parents manages to be taken up by so many schools I find astonishing. My conclusion has to be that the ParentPay marketing strategy is aimed purely at schools since once signed up, parents are obliged to use it. Were it left to the parents, I am quite sure ParentPay would have been replaced long ago. My plea therefore goes out to schools. Please bring to the attention of ParentPay the reviews on this website and elsewhere so that desperately needed change can be swiftly implemented or even better, find a new system.

Everytime I have to update lunches/pay for a school trip I dread the experience. The website takes sooo long to load any page and often times out. I don’t understand how a business if functioning in this day with such a poor quality service!! Very frustrating!

I don't understand why our school insists on using this system, as it is extremely poor and offers zero support. I have been unable to log in to my account since the beginning of the academic year. Despite multiple attempts to reset my password, I have not received any verification codes on either my phone or my email.
When I contacted customer support, I received a generic email instructing me to "CHECK YOUR SPAM!" This response is both insulting and unhelpful, as it assumes I don't know how to check my junk folder. The lack of effective assistance and the system's persistent failures have made this a very frustrating experience.
I strongly advise others to avoid this system if possible. It has proven to be unreliable and inadequately supported, which only adds to the frustration and inconvenience for users.

If I could give 0 stars I would. Had an issue with incorrect charges on our account.

I’ve been emailing with customer support - it’s like banging my head against a wall. They started out by telling me that it’s because we were charged for lunch when there was £0 in the account. This was after I explained that the account had been topped up to the correct amount for the weeks meals (complete with screenshots to prove this), they then tried to tell me that my payments were still pending (they weren’t), then after a few more emails they went back to simply telling me that it’s because Fridays meal was charged when there was no money 🤦‍♀️. It feels like they are running through stock answers with no training on the actual system.

Updated with the support reference: 929270

Update - despite updating with my support reference, I have not been contacted. Not only this, I have received no reply to my email sent over a week ago now at all!

Very poor service, parent pay took £60 fraudulently from my bank account without my knowledge. My daughter is entitled to free school meals. Through direct debit without my knowledge parent pay took £60 from my bank. I never ever set up direct debit not even by mistake as I don't need to use parentpay because my daughter is entitled to free school meals then why should I transfer £60 for her food money. I sent them too many emails but they refused to help me out and didn't refund my money even my daughter is not getting school meal for last couple of months. Now I can't withdraw the funds from parent pay which parent pay took from my account without my knowledge.

I'm fed up with this website absolute useless not working... now can't see menu's.. every time you need to do something.. is an absolute nightmare I don't understand why schools still insist on using them ...1.7 rating on trust pilot not a surprise

Parent pay is the reason, why my kids do not have school lunches anymore. Ordering for three kids same way - one has lunches booked, two do not. I have done all exactly the same way, but I was told I did not confirm the other two. Not a first problem with them. Now I want the refund, which I can not get straight from them, but have ask school to refund to parent pay and later ask parent pay to refund me.

As a long term user of parent pay I can honestly say this company needs a drastic overhaul.
It's clear by my previous experiences and the reviews that something is and has been wrong for a long time.
But as everything seems to be deteriorating in this country then I guess the standard of service parent pay offers has become the norm.

As a long-time user of ParentPay, I have always appreciated the convenience and efficiency the platform offers for managing school-related payments. However, my recent experience with their customer service has been extremely disappointing.

I encountered an issue with an unauthorized auto top-up transaction on my daughter's profile, which prompted me to reach out to ParentPay for assistance. Despite multiple attempts to communicate via email and express the urgency of the situation, I have yet to receive a response or any updates regarding the status of my account or the investigation into the unauthorized transaction.

Not only has the lack of communication left me feeling frustrated and inconvenienced, but the disablement of my account without prior notification has further exacerbated the situation. As a result, I am unable to access important information and address the unresolved issue affecting my daughter's profile.

Additionally, it's worth noting that I currently have funds in my account in my favour because I have paid in advance for the whole month of April. The inability to access these funds due to the disabled account adds to the frustration of the situation.

The apparent disregard for customer inquiries and the failure to provide timely and effective support is unacceptable. I expected better from a company that prides itself on providing reliable and efficient services.

Overall, my experience with ParentPay's customer service has been deeply unsatisfactory, and I would caution others against relying on their services, especially in times of need.

I absolutely dread having to use parent pay, from day one, always have problems logging on, and logging out properly, nothing about the site is easy to use, it's not user friendly in anyway, so pleased only l have one child still at school in his last year, so wont need to stress myself any longer with this S**t website anymore.

Card (visa) not accepted. Card details are not stored, and paypal/ google pay etc not accepted. No app. Worst payment site ever