My son's private school outsourced their billing to SmartTuition. I have found their communications deceptive, their invoices confusing and misleading, their practices predatory, and their policies obscured - all in manner that seems to systematically encourage late fees.

Specifically, billing notices arrive by email from a sender blandly titled 'customerservice' and easy to miss or ignore. Timing seems to optimize one missing a poorly titled email (Mondays, holiday weeks) and no notice is given in advance of late fees. One can pay online via credit card, but there is no upfront mention of surcharge to make up credit card fees. Invoices are hard to read and late fees do not show up as line items.

As SmartTuition seems to be owned by a large parent company that specializes in third party billing, I can only imagine that all of these features are intentional. There is no way that a company with this much data on read rates, response rates, late payment rates would not be optimized for the outcome they desire. And the outcome they desire is to take the customers of another business - apparently many 'good faith', relationship centered businesses - and find ways to charge incidental fees to those customers.

This "Smart tution" thing is a rip off and true garbage. They are charging "convenience fee" of $40 to pay with credit card. The other option is to give them my checking account info (yeah, right). This is a RIP OFF and conspiracy with RSM to charge $40 by their 3rd party software company for payment processing. This should be reported to bureau of consumer affairs. This shady company is a true garbage.

I called to get access to my account to cancel auto withdraw. Agent refused to give me information for false reason despite me proving ownership of the account.
After a long heated exchange I finaly got an agent to cancel my auto withdraw. Of course it was not immediate and I supposedly have to wait 7 days for it to be effective.
To retaliate for my insistance, they even called my school to tell them I have not been nice with the agent.

In which world are they leaving, it's MY money and I should have been able to cancel my withdraws without ever calling them.

They are fraudulent and should be avoided at all cost.

My Name is Mr McBride Eugene, I'm filling this Complaint against the above mention person who works at Scared Heart School, in
Yonkers,New York. I always had a problem with this lady Ms Millen who works with the accounts for Smartuition, from the school,
whatever she put upon your account thats not correct, she will not tell you, she just do it.. At the beginning of the school year she gave me very hard time to get the code no# to apply for Financial Aide/, I went through so much but I got it, they grant me for my child
a certain amount and the legacy grant also, now Ms Millen had added $805. dollars to my account for me to pay in May 2019. In the beginning of the School year they give you a complete break down of what you have to pay, for 10 months, upon writing this down and keeping a record of it. There is no payment that I ever. missed or late, this also include after school payments, I pay in cash at CVS Store paypal, so it goes direct to smart tuition. This lady do things behind your back and then submit it to Smarttution, I never went through something like this ever,and my child been in that school, since Pre K, Iam going to contact the Better Business Bureau.,and the Superintendent Of Catholic School, Atty's for Schools Association etc. This have to stop.....this is a serious matter and it has to be stop,So I'm asking the Parent Advocate to seriously get involved in this..

There was no info about a fee for using a debit card. They asked if I authorized the amount of my payment, but when I went to look at my bank acct they added on the fee which I did not authorize. Why would I pay with my debit card and pay a high fee if I can pay with a check for free when it’s the same account. I called and asked them to cancel it and I would use a check they said they couldn’t and I needed to call my bank. I called my bank they said start tuition can 100% stop the payment. I am so angry that they duped me. I will also be contacting bbb. Absolutely unethical and ridiculous!

Today I tried to find the payment of $200 for registration fee of my 2 kids to RSM last semester, because there is no record of exact amount to track on smart Tuition parent account( only show $200 paid on total tuion page) I was not able to check my payment method. ( ST provides bank card or criedit card) .

So I searched all my cards for the $200 payment, and didn’t get it, I researched again for title , and finally found a $205.30 to Smart Tuition. I realized that I was charged fee for using credit card. But on their credit card payment page, there is NO sign on first page to show the convenient fee at all. If there were, I would not have paid that silly convenient fee since I have bank account saved.

And also I paid registration fee at between March and April, on ST page shows my payment at JUNE! That is also why it took me more than one hour to search the listing .

SmartTuion is not an honest business, if I have choice, I will not use this company again!

I was directed to pay my daughter's tuition through SmartTuition. My initial try to do an ACH payment was met with an error for no explicable reason. I even called the bank to ensure it hadn't gone through. It had not. My second try was successful, however, the next morning my account was substantially overdrawn because they had taken two payments. I immediately called and was told that there was nothing they could do. I had to contact my bank. After working in banking and the business of electronics payments for years I called BS, but they wouldn't budge, refusing to offer any solutions, even though my account was overdrawn by thousands of dollars because of their mistake. Ultimately, my bank said they would help me, but I needed a fax on letterhead stating it was indeed a duplicate charge. I again called SmartTuition and again their answer was that they did not provide things in writing. After being on hold for at least 30 minutes the representative came back on the line and said she would forward my issue to the account management team, but it they couldn't guarantee they could provide any help and it would be at least 2 days before they would let me know.

I ultimately had to file a duplicate ACH report with the fraud department of my bank so they could remove the charge. Ridiculous. From now on I will send a check to the school. I highly recommend that you DO NOT use SmartTuition.

This company engages in deceptive and illegal business practices by systematically charging late fees and service charges to consumers over the past several years. This company purposely delays the processing of payments to artificially allow past due dates to pass thus triggering late fees. I am in the process of contacting the New Jersey and New York Attorney Generals office to open Bi State cases into the business practices of this company. I will request any other persons that have had the fraud perpetuated against them to do the same. In addition I have contacted the Postal Police Inspections unit to open their own independent case into this matter

Just received a phone call stating my payment has not been received. This company never even sent an invoice and I will be charged a late fee. In the process of contacting the New Jersey State Attorney General Office as well as the Post Master General and filling a criminal complaint against the CEO for conspiracy to commit fraud. This is a systematic plan to fraudulently scam money under the false pretense of late fees. I will post the complaint number here once I speak with the investigator in the AM. I encourage all persons to maintain record and join in having this brought to a settlement or if necessary arrest and conviction.

I wanted to tell about my first and if I can help it only experience with Smart tuition. My school just switched to them and the very first payment they claim to have not received. I processed it with my online bill pay on July 3rd. It was sent on July 5th. My bank says it was received by them on July 12th. They still have not credited my account and are claiming they have not received it. I'm being charged penalties and a $60 late fee when my bank says they do have the payment. My only option is to stop the payment and reissue which will cost me a stop payment fee as well as the penalties and late fee. Customer service had an "nothing I can do" comment. When I got mad (yes I did start yelling after 15 minutes going back and forth with no help) she hung up on me. I am complaining to my school as well as my bank.

I recently had a very unfortunate experience that I wish to share about my SMART account.
Apparently the first auto payment from my bank account failed. I should add this is the same bank account I have used for several years for SMART payments without fail and it filed because of wrong account number.
I was not notified of the failed payment until AFTER I was penalized with a late fee AND failed payment fee.
As I appeal these fees, I ask that in the future my account be debited sooner than the due date in case there is a failed payment I would have time to correct your error and not be penalized both a late and failed fee. I was told that is not possible. The payment is always debited on the due date and if it fails there is always a double penalty – late and failed payment. Seriously? That process completely lacks integrity and is super deceptive leaving customers no choice.
I have asked my school to allow me to opt out of the service and the only reason I have account is because they require it.
This is poor management or lack of technological savvy as every other online payment service I use allows me to select the payment date. Additionally other services do not allow the data to be entered incorrectly by the user as it wont accept the number if it isn’t correct. It immediately says “incorrect”. Your service however doesn’t figure that out until over $100 of fees are added. I find that to be extraordinarily poor for your customers who I imagine are like me with no choice but to use your service.
This has not been my only issue where I feel policies are deceptive. I hope schools who are considering punishing their families with this service will look elsewhere. It absolutely causes me to question whether my school is being good stewards of their funds by choosing this company.

Smarty Tuition aid is a horrible company to deal with....you have to pay a convinence fee to make a payment and it is 1 hour late they charge you a 40 fee.....you then call them and all they can do it send an email to the "billing department" to have my case recviewed....I ask both the customer service rep and a supervisor if they thought that was good customer service and they both circles around the question and did not want to answer the question....this company is a scam....they just want to nicke and dime you in every way they can. I hate that we do not have a choice in using a company to pay our school bill.

Smart Tuition does not recommend online bill payment at this point in time because it is not the most efficient way to make a payment. I would like to explain this process with online bill payments through banks. When payments are initiated through banks, they remove the funds from your available funds and send Smart Tuition a physical check by regular mail. That does not mean that we received your check as soon as the funds come out of your account. Your bank will sometimes give you an estimated date of arrival but they cannot predict delivery times of the US Mail. We are told by the USPS to allow 5-7 business days for delivery and when there is a holiday to allow an additional 1-2 business days on top of the normal delivery time. The delays everyone has experienced are not just with transit times, the postal service also has to sort the mail before we can pick it up. Our lockboxes pick up 6 times a day in order to make sure that we receive all deliveries for that day. I strongly recommend making payments through our website or by phone to avoid any delays. We are in the process of setting up electronic receipts of onliine bill payments by the end of the 2nd quarter of this year.

Sincerely,

Jim Lozano
Director of Parent Experience
Smart Tuition

Smart tuition will add a late fee if you pay by check at least once a year. Your check can arrive a week before the due date, but if they dont process checks in time, you will be charged a late fee. I send my check out 15 days before due date. Even on a bad mail week, Smart tuition gets my check at least 5-7 days before it is due. Somehow, I will get charged at least one late fee every year. Scam! Smart tuition is generating money because they sit on your check.......until after due date. Scam!

I had already been charged a "late" fee once before by Smart Tuition because they didn't process my automated payment. That was weird, I've never had a problem with Bank of America's automatic BillPay before. To avoid this happening again, I moved up my automatic payment date to 10 days before the end of the month. That should be enough time, right?

Once again, I get charged a "late" fee because they didn't process my payment fast enough (attached is my confirmation from Bank of America showing it was delivered by 12/22/2016).

It turns out SmartTuition's terms with schools is that they gets to keep 100% of late fees. The slower they process payments, the more money Smart Tuition makes! What a scam!

I called on January 3, at 10:00 and waited on hold for 30+ minutes (I assume because everyone else was calling to complain as well). The representative "Josh" told he couldn't refund the late fee until they "received" my payment (which was undoubtly sitting in their office in a pile with all the other unprocessed payments). I was told I would have to call back after it has been "received" to request a refund of this late fee.

When I asked to talk to a supervisor, I was put on hold for three more minutes until Josh came back on the line and said there weren't any supervisors there today. No supervisors, huh?

I asked that the supervisor call me when one came back, and he said OK. A month later I am still waiting for a supervisor to call me back.

Josh, please have your supervisor call me if you read this! I'm waiting by the phone.

This business model is a thinly veiled scam on parents. Any school considering using them should be very wary that parents will pay the price.

According to Visa's policy, certain criteria must be met in order for a merchant to charge a convenience fee:
-The payment must take place across an alternative payment channel.
-Customers must be told about the fee in advance.
-The fee must be a FLAT or FIXED price rather than a percentage of the sale.
-The fee must be included in the total transaction amount.
-The fee must be applied to all means of payment that are accepted in that alternative payment channel. However, tax payments don't have to meet all of those criteria. "While Visa regulations prohibit merchants from applying surcharges to normal transactions, we do permit our cards to be used for tax payments together with a convenience fee," says Ted Carr, a spokesman for Visa.

why they charge a percentage of the ammount??

According to Visa's policy, certain criteria must be met in order for a merchant to charge a convenience fee.
-The payment must take place across an alternative payment channel.
-Customers must be told about the fee in advance.
-The fee must be a FLAT or FIXED price rather than a percentage of the sale.
-The fee must be included in the total transaction amount.
-The fee must be applied to all means of payment that are accepted in that alternative payment channel. However, tax payments don't have to meet all of those criteria. "While Visa regulations prohibit merchants from applying surcharges to normal transactions, we do permit our cards to be used for tax payments together with a convenience fee," says Ted Carr, a spokesman for Visa.

I have also had a horrible experience with smart tuition. They send my monthly statements so late that there is no way my check will be received in time. To avoid the dreaded "late fee" I am forced to use their online pay. In addition I pay a monthly "administrative fee" but for what? To get my bill sent late for them to rack up late fees... Since the BBB has been no help, the next step is filing a complaint against them with the Federal trade commission. Their business practice is nothing short of extortion.

The Federal Trade Commission's complaint website is:
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/GettingStarted?NextQID=251&Url=%23%26panel1-9#crnt

I had the same issue - I deliberately sent my check and it was delivered 1/6/17 (confirmed by my bank online pay) - and smart tuition did not process it til 1/18/17 and charges me $40 - second time it's happened this year - it's a scam and I will not use them any more - I will be directly paying the school - I am a busy parent but I keep my finances under close scrutiny and this is unacceptable behavior!

Here is my experience w/ Smart Tuition.

1) When they send out bills by e-mail, the bills are sent at least one day AFTER the date on the bill.
2) If one wants to pay by check, which is reasonable to protect bank account privacy or avoid credit card fees, they give you 17 days to turn around that payment.
3) If you mail the check on the SAME DAY that you receive the bill, they will hold the check until the day after it is due and charge a late fee.
4) If you spend the time and effort to dispute the late fee - which is a significant time commitment - 15 minute phone hold time, then dealing with incompetent customer service reps. - and you win your dispute, they do not remove the late fee from the billing statement, but rather, they credit your account by the late fee amount. In other words, they are dishonest and will not admit that they should not have charged the late fee.

Think about it. I don't know how many schools they serve, but if half the families at the one school that my child attends pay by check, that would amount to $10,000 in late fees PER BILL. If they bill a half dozen times per year, that's $60,000 collected in late fees for each school that they service. I bet that most people don't check their accounts carefully, and the late fee doesn't show up as a late fee on the summary billing statement. In other words, besides the behavior described above, they attempt to hide the late fee.

I get about a month to pay my credit card bill. There is no reason that such an organization must bill with so little time to pay...and we have no 7-11 or other locations to pay as they suggest...and then they lie when they have the check in hand and purposely delay depositing it. This organization is unethical. Their intention is to collect late fees on as many bills as possible. I would encourage all of you who have had a similar experience to contact your school and urge them to dump this provider.

I'm sorry your unhappy with delivery times for payments. We do offer more efficient payment methods other than mailing payments or online bill payments.

These are the best ways to make payments at Smart Tuition that do not involve transit times for payments.

1. Website payments
2. Telephone payments
3. Automatic debits from your account
4. Cash payments at 7 Eleven, Ace Cash Express, or Family Dollar
5. Mobile App payments

We are working on accepting online bill payments from banks electronically in the upcoming year. This should eliminate a lot of the transit times associated with this payment option.

If you have any questions about how to use one of these payment options, please call 1-888-868-8828.

Sincerely,

Smart Tuition

Smart Tuition operates a highly organized scheme to profit from late fees. Here is how is goes:

1. The company receives your check before the due date.
2. Occasionally, the company holds check until after the due date, and then cashes your check.
3. The company charges a $50 for your "late" payment.
4. After you call and complain, they take seven days to process your complaint.
5. They then tell you that you are responsible for ensuring your payment is received on time.

And so you know, ever employee will tell you the same things - like they are reading from a script.

This is well-organized company that is not satisfied with their legitimate profit. They defraud their customers of their money, and to make matters worse, the customers have zero options for working with another company since the customers are required by their children's school to use Smart Tuition.

Check out the online reviews for this company, and notice the pattern.

Behind their polish and professionalism, the company is simply a well-orchestrated gang of pickpockets that immorally profit off families who pay for their child's education. And of course, this scheme more easily ensnares lower income families who are making monthly payments and who pay on the due date.

Currently, I am paying $50 for a "late" payment that was due on November 1. The company received the check on October 28 and waited until November 2 to register the payment.

I'm currently battling smart tuition pertaining to late fees incurred because my payment was in last year account. This has happened to me before and it happened both times when I had to reset my password. I was talked down to by a representative twanda about my money was placed in last year's account. When I told her I felt disrespecTed ,she stated she perfered to get it straight. I asked to speak with a manager and a number in the event I get cut off she stated she couldn't do it because they were busy and gave the # I called to get her. I spent between 2:53pm to 3:50 pm on hold and being insulted and the problem still didn't get resolved. A supervisor Glenn called me back to placate me. My money is in smart tuition account, but it's going to take 12 days to switch it to the correct account. While it's in anew old paid in full account, I am being hit with late fees. I have a late fee for a $25 late fee. They are illegally extracting money from people. Shamed on you smart tuition.

''Smart Tuition offers a variety of payment options to avoid late fees. We offer automatic debit, one time payments on our website and by phone, cash payments at 7 Eleven, Family Dollar, and Ace Cash Express. We also have a mobile app called Smart Tuition for parents. Smart Tuition offers free payment options if you use your checking or savings account. We do not recommend Online Bill Payment as a payment method however we are in the process of setting up electronic payments with banks. We are looking to establish this connection by the 2nd Quarter of 2017''.

TO ALL PARENTS, LOOK !! THIS IS GENIUS FROM ""RETARD"" TUITION!! They offer autopay in so many different ways so that they can get away with it, without us busy parents knowing about it, just trust them with your checking or savings account . That's their way of fixing the problem or should I say "scam" of late fees.

Smart Tuition offers a variety of payment options to avoid late fees. We offer automatic debit, one time payments on our website and by phone, cash payments at 7 Eleven, Family Dollar, and Ace Cash Express. We also have a mobile app called Smart Tuition for parents. Smart Tuition offers free payment options if you use your checking or savings account. We do not recommend Online Bill Payment as a payment method however we are in the process of setting up electronic payments with banks. We are looking to establish this connection by the 2nd Quarter of 2017. If you still wish to use Online Bill Pay as your preferred payment method, you should generate your payment earlier. At this time, banks send us these payments by regular mail and there is no way for them to guarantee deliver of payment. Banks give an estimated delivery time the payment should arrive. We have no control over when we receive the payments.

If you have any questions about this please contact me at [email protected].

Kind regards,

Jim Lozano
Director of Parent Experience
Smart Tuition