School dinner payment app goes bust and parents are furious over £10 fee to get refunds

PARENTS have been left fuming after being charged a £10 fee to withdraw funds from their accounts on a payments app.

About 600 schools across the UK had been using the sQuid payments app to allow parents to pay for school dinners.

But the app stopped its service this month after announcing in February that the accounts would be ending.

It's now charging parents a £10 fee to withdraw the remaining money in their accounts.

The parents of between 180,000 and 200,000 children in primary and secondary schools had accounts with sQuid.

Some have been venting their rage on online forum Mumsnet.

One person posted a thread on the forum telling others what had happened, saying: “Many parents have small amounts left on their sQuid account to ensure that their children were able to purchase school dinners up until the transfer.

“Essentially, they have taken funds from potentially thousands of parents. Has anyone else been affected? I'm wondering how widespread this is.”

Another person replied: “This is shocking I have £17 balance. Both my kids schools used squid.”

A third person said: “I was thinking about this. There's about 1000 in DC's school. I've got a positive balance of around £3, which is a tiny amount and I can afford to lose it.

“But it everyone in the school had the same, then they've made £3000 profit from our school ALONE. That's outrageous!”

Others said their children's schools had been affected.

Flying Eze has contacted sQuid for comment.

However it told Guardian Money that the charges are in line with its terms and conditions.

It refused to say how much money is left in accounts or how much it has made through the £10 fees.

The company had been providing accounts where parents could pay for school dinners and trips.

Last month it said it was pulling out of the market because economic conditions had made the business unsustainable.

According to sQuid's terms and conditions, parents can only withdraw money from their account if there is a balance of at least £10.

It also says it will charge an admin fee of £10 per user “for refunding stored value from your sQuid accounts”.

Adam Smith, co-founder and CEO of Squid, told Guardian Money: “We run a business and we have costs. We are leaving the market because we cannot make money. We are unsustainable and we're having... a very orderly exit.

“We have a set of terms and conditions and we’re absolutely correct and entitled to exercise our terms and conditions.”

He added the “vast majority” of accounts had no money left in them.

Are you missing out on free school meals?

Recent analysis has revealed that hundreds of thousands of children are actually missing out on free school meals.

Over 471,000 eligible children in England are not receiving them because theirparents or carershave not applied, according to analysis of Government data by Policy in Practice.

This means those families are missing out on an average of more than £490 a year in support.

Some 1.75million school-age children receive free lunches worth an average of £2.58 per day.

You can find out more on whether you qualify here.