ParentPay Reviews 4,436

Parentpay has the most appalling customer service. Like many I’ve not had money refunded. Every query request/complaint I made has been automatically closed without a resolution. They took £50 from my bank account and never added it to my Parentpay account. After many attempts I lost the will to get it refunded. I now add funds in small amounts and stopped my direct debit. Such a shame schools use this payment system.

The most difficult website I have ever used. Have contacted them twice both times received an automated email saying someone would get back to me but they never did.

Not sure why schools are using this, it's absolutely rubbish. Non user friendly, nonsense website.

Would give minus 5 stars if I could.
Set up one click payment for my children’s dinner money.
Next thing I know they debited £20 and another £10 out of my account without me requesting or authorising the payments and the money did not show up in my kids account balance. I contacted my bank. they reversed the charges and I cancelled the direct debit both with my bank and on my parent pay account.
A few days later Parent Pay attempted to take another £10 out of my account which was declined.
Parent pay then decided to take £10 out of my son’s lunch money account that was already in there left over from my previous manual payment. Putting him in minus.
They then decided to block my bank card so I could not add any money on his account manually for lunch money.
Then they emailed me telling me I had to cancel the chargeback claim from my bank.
Utter disgrace and deceitful.

Have emailed Parentpay 8 times and sent a formal letter of complaint but still no reply! Received a substantial refund for a school trip and I’m not able to withdraw the funds. It’s a simple fix but their customer service department just don’t respond to queries. Not sure what to do?!

When will someone contact me please I’ve been waiting weeks?

This company is so Desperate they have tried to force me to use their product by stopping DrChrono EMR from allowing me to use their in-house payment system. I never signed up for Cleargage/Patient Pay and they presumably have done some sort of legal action to DrChrono to get us to start using their system. It's a company run by juvenile vindictive losers.

If I could give this app a minus figure I would. As a user it 1. is not intuitive; 2. training is appalling and 3. there is no way to contact a person. It is clumsy, requires a lot of duplication of effort and frankly should be taken off line.

Direct debit coming out my account but they cant tell me what or who for. Not registered so they wont speak to me. No phone number to call

Found out recently that Parentpay has been randomly withdrawing money from my account since 2023 after I got another unauthorised payment yesterday. In total the amount that has been taken without my knowledge is around £2000. All unauthorised. I checked my Starling bank scheduled payments, and there are two direct debits made, one I recognise as my own account with Parentpay which I was using to pay trips and such. I paid for lunches on a different platform. The other account I do not recognise and has been randomly stealing money from my account for years, in one month it had taken £450. I received zero emails for any purchases made so I know these are unauthorised. The bank can't do anything, so I have to contact Parentpay who tell me to contact the school. The school is telling me to contact Parentpay. Insane and disgusting. Someone who works at Parentpay must be stealing money from parents. My son had finished school in July 2025, and Parentpay was still taking money out of nowhere, I never paid anything since June 2025. Who knows if I will manage to get my £2000 back.

Doesn't let me login every single time I try says my password is wrong. Have to reset it everytime. So frustrating.

Unfortunately I can’t give 0 stars! I like many others have experienced how frustrating this company is to deal with. There is no way to speak to an actual human, it’s only Penny the AI agent who continually tells me the same thing.
If anyone has managed to speak to them on the phone then please share how as it would appear to be impossible.
I currently have £90 of pending transactions on my bank account, and both my children have no funds in their accounts to buy lunch. I keep being told to contact my school which I’ve done and have followed the instructions given by the school only to be told by parentpay that I shouldn’t be emailing them, I need to contact my school!
Not much I can do about it as they are the school’s provider but I’m really not sure how they can give themselves the title “leading cashless system”! Or how they can boast to resolving 96% of issues. Absolute joke!!

Absolute vile company!!!! Put my daughters money on for school. They decided that they didnt recieve it and then yhe next day decided they did but that it wouldn't show on the account for 10 working days... obviously being held in another account to gain on their behalf! Customer support discusting vile and slam the phone down. I have just now spoken to another lady called emma farrow who cannot explain to me where my money has gone. My daughter had a £600 school trip coming up that i will definatly not be paying through here! There is no support for parents only schools are allowed to contact them. Discusting rude staff AVOID!!!!!!! This was 6th February I wrote this review its now the 31st of March and its still not gone back into my account.

Wish I could give zero stars !!! .. customer service is AI , absolute joke, not helpful at all .. At the moment they have taken 50 pounds and not reflected on my children's lunch accounts, told me the school will need to give me a refund, but the school haven't got my money Parent Pay have ..

I have a big school trip to pay via Parentpay, but don't trust the system at all, so I will be speaking to the school to see other options of paying .

Awful system.

Awful. Was really happy with squid account but the school decided it needed to change to parent pay and what a mistake that was. Made a payment for two school trips, they took the payment twice a day apart, tried to get in touch no one to get in touch with. A useless robot says someone will email, they don’t. It’s almost the end of January and I’m still missing my money which I actually need. Yes if it affected direct debits etc they will pay the charges etc but what about people that rely on every penny in their bank accounts even £12 can be the difference between eating and not eating especially in this cost of living crisis. It’s absolutely appalling. The charges should have been returned instantly in this day and age not taking up to 10 days in the worse financial month of the year and during a cost of living crisis. Have emailed the school to reconsider squid account! Never ever had one problem with them!!!!!!!! Avoid ParentPay

No way to contact them when things go wrong!

What an appalling company to deal with. They are very good at taking money, but have no customer service that you can contact, so when they take an unauthorised payment from your account there is no one to speak to. If you can avoid dealing with them, for your own sanity I would suggest you do!

Wish I could give zero stars! It's unbelievable that in this day and age we are FORCED to use such a useless service! Absolutely disgusting! You should be ashamed of yourself!
DON'T USE THEM IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO!

Diabolical. Very easy to add money to an account but when you want YOUR money refunded upon your child leaving school, good luck, cos you'll need it.
Submitted bank details, had several online chats with a useless robot, and assured I would be contacted by customer service via email (several times). However, no one contacted me yet. No refund in my bank account. They must be making a mint with all the leftover monies, adding up, once they ignore you and hold out till you give in.

Hello, I am adding to the long list of people who are complaining about their "one-click payment".

I have a ticket that has been "resolved" 3 times or more, I'm not counting anymore, at least it goes towards their fabulous stats on their website of 96% resolved support tickets! Fear not, they are not resolved for you, but that's not an issue.

I very rarely use this site as my children take packed lunches to school, however I have had to use them against my will for a one off payment on seldom occasions. The last time I used their one-click payment (back in November). Payment happened, all is good and well.
Imagine my surprise when I check yesterday my upcoming payments on my banking app and notice one for the same amount coming up at the end of December for the same amount as November. The issue is I have not ordered anything else, and there is no recurring need here. Yes a Direct Debit Mandate was set up, however it should not show as an upcoming payment that does not exist.
I checked on their website and cannot see anything that would justify the request for a payment, there is no open order.

I contacted support who told me everything is working as it should. Then explain why I had to cancel a payment for this month from my bank account?

Of course I also removed my data from their site as well.

The audacity to repeatedly telle me that the system works as intended but also suggesting that I am at fault for not reading the instructions is baffling. Nowhere does it say "just to let you know, you will see a phantom payment but it won't be debited" ... no other companies with whom I've used DD mandates has ever done this.

But don't worry everyone, it is working as intended and it is you the problem, you didn't read! And you know what? If you don't like it use the card payment ok?

I wonder, if I had not seen this, what would actually have happened? Would the upcoming payment have indeed disappeared (and then what be reported to January, and then February, etc) or would it have been debited?

I wish my children's school was not using this system, it feels like a scam. When I see the abysmal reviews I fail to understand how they cannot feel a need for improvement on their end.

And no need to respond Support, my ticket, after all, is resolved!

I submitted a 1 star review over 3 weeks ago. I received what seems to be a standard reply - "We take these concerns seriously and are committed to finding a resolution". They asked me to contact them directly and gave me an email address, which I did 3 weeks ago. Since then I have received nothing. So much for taking concerns seriously.