By Amanda Eleftheriades
Are you one of thousands of households missing out on millions of pounds?
Families who received a prepaid card to help with the cost of healthy food are being urged to check their balance.
Best Start Foods helps with the cost of buying healthy food and milk during pregnancy or if they have a child under the age of three.
The payment is delivered via a prepaid card and is topped up with up to £36 for each eligible child every four weeks.
Since launching in 2019, more than 7,000 of the issued cards have never been activated and over 3,000 have been activated but never used.
This means some cardholders have not spent their payment and may have built up large balances.
In total, up to £2.3 million in has yet to be spent.
A spokesperson for Social Security Scotland said: “Given the current cost of living crisis, we are keen to ensure people check their cards and use their balances.”
Social Security Scotland has already written to some people urging them to look for their cards and check their balances.
This can be done online, at a cash machine by entering your 4-digit PIN or by calling the card issuer Allpay.
Allpay is also writing to card holders to inform them of their unspent balances.
Information included in this article was correct at time of publication in March 2023