Ashburn Children's Center

Review: The owner, [redacted], closed his Ashburn child care center after giving only 6 days notice.

I am owed $609 in daycare fees and have a receipt from the center stating so.

He has refused to refund my money (and MANY other parents).

He operates 2 other daycare centers (in [redacted] and in [redacted])

I only want the money owed to me.

He ignores all my emails and his accountant says "he has to pay rent and payroll first"

I have heard this for 2 months...Desired Settlement: All I want is the refund money given to me.

I have proof he owes me $609.00 for childcare I did not receive due to him closing his daycare with only 6 DAYS NOTICE.

Review: The Ashburn Children's Center told us in a first notice that if we did not pay a bill they believe we owe in the amount of $498, they would "see us in small claims court." First of all, we do not have a balance with ACC. Second, the company breached our contract for services by closing their school early, with only 7 business days notice.

Reason #1 we believe we owe nothing: In their billing statement, ACC offers no proof of a balance forward from 2012. We paid for all of 2012, just as we did 2013. For 2013, there were 21 weeks of school and one materials fee for us to pay ACC. Since the materials fee is equal to one week’s tuition, we owed ACC 22 payments of $249. Subtract from that our 2 weeks of free credit, and we now owe ACC 20 payments of $249 for 2013. We paid ACC 18 payments of $249, which would leave us short two payments. Instead of making another payment of $249, we simply told the ACC staff to keep the refundable deposit we made in 2012. The staff, in writing, said this was acceptable. Our deposit was never refunded to us; it simply became the 19th payment. Which leaves payment #20. My wife contacted the president and several staff members several times via email, phone, and in person about our safety concerns on the playground, specifically the lack of a safe surface and poison ivy growing in the play area. Based on these concerns, we requested a refund of our materials fee. The president of ACC never responded to us. The staff promised the safety concerns would be addressed. They were not. A promise of a refund was made the ACC staff. Despite their promises, we saw no refund. Since we never received the promised refund, we consider this to be payment #20. That brings us to even.

Reason two: The contract between ACC and my wife and I stated that the school year would end 7 June 2013. Instead, ACC hastily closed the school on 31 May, informing us of that decision on 22 May. That is only seven business days notice, breaching our contract. This forced us to scramble to find day care for our child and resulted in lost wages and leave for both my wife and I. Our lost wages and leave amount to more than $600.Desired Settlement: That ACC zero out our account and not contact us again.

Review: After giving our contractual 2 weeks' notice (against our better judgement since the environment did not appear to be safe), we removed our daughter from this school in October of 2012 (her last day was 10/19/12), due to consistent first-hand observations (and reports from our daughter) of neglect, unsafe & unsanitary conditions in her classroom. We paid for each month's tuition, which was due weekly, on a monthly basis (so essentially we pre-paid the latter 3 weeks of each month). When we left the school we were told by the manager (who is no longer there) that we should receive a check for the amount that our account was over-paid at that time ($820) within a few weeks. Since then, my husband has been in contact with Ashburn Children's Center on at least a weekly, but oftentimes several times a week, via phone and email inquiring about the money we were due. Eventually he was informed that he should be contacting their [redacted], VA location instead because the Ashburn location didn't handle any of the accounting for the chain of schools, so he began working with that branch. Their accounting representative, who is a self-described "volunteer," claimed that she had no way of knowing when a check would be able to be cut "because the owner rarely comes into the office." After several months of consistently contacting the accounting rep, on May 9 2013 my husband received an email saying that our check had been cut and signed, and was available for pickup; however, she had made a mistake when writing the check and had written it for $100 less than the true balance on the account. I went to pick the check up and was informed that she didn't know when she would be able to get a check for the remaining balance cut, and laughed about how it was hit or miss getting checks signed.

After repeatedly being told over the past 7 1/2 months that a check had been cut (both from their Ashburn & [redacted] locations), was in the mail (and apparently lost), this most recent development is infuriating. If we had been late with a tuition payment, we would have been penalized with late payment fees, and yet this company has held over $800 of our money for over a year. Not only do I question the establishment's ability to adequately provide child care, it is clear that they are incapable of running a business from an accounting, and perhaps financial in general, perspective.Desired Settlement: We deserve to have the remaining balance due to us - $100.00 - issued immediately. In addition, I want this complaint to remain on the Revdex.com website to warn any potential or current customers of the business practices that this company employs.