Awful provider - use another! (Computershare Voucher Services)

Member Name: sirjamesp

Product:	Computershare Voucher Services
Date:	20/07/09 (207 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good tax break (but this is available with any provider).

Disadvantages: Unreliable & unhelpful - they will leave you out of pocket!

Good tax break, but absolute pain of a provider. if your employer is thinking of starting a voucher scheme (and they should - it saves them money too), then make sure they use a different provider. There are plenty out there, but Busy Bees seem to dominate for some reason.

In all the time my wife and I have been using Busy Bees, not one single month has gone by without some problem or other leaving us out of pocket.

We have opted for paper vouchers, as the nursery prefer not touch the e-vouchers due to problems with getting paid. Whether or not we actually get the paper vouchers seems to be a matter of chance - often we end up with e-vouchers for no clear reason. Cue lots of messing around trying to get access to the website to credit the money to the nursery (a real hit-and-miss process).

Other months one of us will receive nothing at all (no paper vouchers, no e-vouchers) - "You're not on our system" is the usual excuse. The confirmation e-mails appear to mean nothing. We've taken to ringing the day before the vouchers should be issued to check that everything is set up correctly (although even this doesn't always work).

Other problems include being issued the wrong amount (always too low, funnily enough), money being taken out of our salaries only to disappear into the ether, and the nursery not being paid when the vouchers are "cashed".

The customer help desk is not much help. Attitudes vary from "It's not our problem - speak to your HR department" (something which HR are getting pretty fed up with - scores of angry parents on the phone each month) to "There's nothing I can do".

All in all, a terrible experience.

I would encourage employers to avoid this company like the plague! Use another provider - there are plenty out there.

UPDATE: This company have now changed their name to Computershare Vouchers (they were bought out a year ago, but have only just been renamed). The new name has not brought a new standard of service - if anything, the service has got worse! Good luck trying to get through to customer services when you don't receive the vouchers you have paid for - my record this month is an hour on hold (and I still don't have my vouchers).

Summary: Good tax break, but absolute pain of a provider.