Best way to pay TV licence ?

[Deleted User]

What is the best way to pay for a Tv licence ?



Thanks guys,



T

tanith

I pay mine quarterly by DD never had any problems , it just comes in the post yearly and to be honest I never give it a thought....

economiser

OK if you trust DD's. They are fine until you have trouble. The bank guarantee can be worthless. Some banks are better than others but some just refer you to the debiter and its up to you to solve the problem and that can be a problem if the debiter is not co-operative.

innovate

Unless it has recently been changed (the official TV licensing site is of little help, I got my information from the stuff they send you in the post, but haven't received post from them for 7 months now because my renewal date is April): you get charged extra for paying your TV Licence by Direct Debit. If my memory serves me right, the extra charge amounts to something like 10% APR, which is disgraceful for something you have no option but to pay - short of not having a telly.

If you can at all, pay the whole annual bill in advance. Only if you have to borrow the money at more than 10% interest rate is it viable to pay by Direct Debit.

(btw, don't agree with economiser that you need to be concerned about DDs in general - you can withdraw a DD authority any time you like. To be on the safe side, you do this in writing, with registered mail).

Martini

innovate wrote:

Unless it has recently been changed (the official TV licensing site is of little help, I got my information from the stuff they send you in the post, but haven't received post from them for 7 months now because my renewal date is April): you get charged extra for paying your TV Licence by Direct Debit. If my memory serves me right, the extra charge amounts to something like 10% APR, which is disgraceful for something you have no option but to pay - short of not having a telly.

If you can at all, pay the whole annual bill in advance. Only if you have to borrow the money at more than 10% interest rate is it viable to pay by Direct Debit.

(btw, don't agree with economiser that you need to be concerned about DDs in general - you can withdraw a DD authority any time you like. To be on the safe side, you do this in writing, with registered mail).

Cost Bit - Not true at all!
You get charged no extra for paying monthly by DD.
When your next licence reminder comes you can join up and pay for it in arrears in 6 monthly installments! Then the cost goes down per month as you start to pay for the following year. This you pay for 6 months in advance and six months in arrears so they cancel each other out!
It is by far the most convenient way of paying for it!

innovate

The DD arrangements they offer don't appear to be as straight forward as you say. If you go to the website and start setting up a DD, halfway through you are offered a DD calculator (I find it very irritating that you have to start setting up the DD before you can find out what the rules for the DD are - - - and the rules also appear extremely confusing).

Looks like the amounts you pay depend

1. on when your licence is due for renewal and
2. on when you set up the DD

For instance, if I wanted to set up a DD today for a licence that expires on 01/12/2006, according to the calculator, the only way I can pay is by a single DD for £126.50.

The calculator says I am unable to set up direct debit today for a licence that expires 01/01/2007 (or any expiry date after 01/12/2006). I.e. Looks like I cannot set up a DD that covers a full year in advance, and it is also entirely unclear what happens after the initial (11 months?) duration of the DD is up.

If my licence expired on 01/12/2006, I could - today - choose between monthly, quarterly, and annual DD payment:

• monthly: 1 x 10.56 plus 11 x 10.54 (126.50 before interest considerations)
• quarterly 1 x 32.89 plus 3 x 32.87 (131.50 before interest considerations)
• annually 1 x 126.50 (same as payment by cheque/credit card)

There is no indication on which date the DD would leave my account, and there doesn't appear to be an option to specify a date. It is also somewhat unclear how many months the payments would cover but it looks more like 11 than 12.

The direct debit information on their website is all totally non-transparent, but it appears there is an element of interest involved in the monthly and quarterly payments (the monthly option loses a full month's fee, by the looks of it - i.e. with monthly DD it costs £10 or thereabouts more than paying £126.50 upfront for a year)

It's only pennies, but I conclude that paying by direct debit does cost more than making a one-off payment - and in percentage terms, it is something around 8% on the apparently 'good deal' monthly DD, and 3% for quarterly DD.

With every Utility, you get a discount these days for paying by direct debit - which is only fair because the cost of retrieving the moneys due by DD is lower than any other way. From the information on their website, it appears that TV Licensing does not pass on such cost savings to the consumer - quite the contrary, it looks as if they penalise people who pay by DD.

I won't pay by DD until they give a discount for doing so.

If I have misunderstood the calculator on the TV Licensing website, I am sure someone will soon come along and explain where I went wrong!

grumbler

Tony_D wrote:

What is the best way to pay for a Tv licence ?

What do you mean 'the best'? I think the easiest way is to pay by DD - once a year to avoid interes. However, you can pay by a cashback credit card and save 1-2%.

KTF

innovate wrote:

• monthly: 1 x 10.56 plus 11 x 10.54 (126.50 before interest considerations)
• quarterly 1 x 32.89 plus 3 x 32.87 (131.50 before interest considerations)
• annually 1 x 126.50 (same as payment by cheque/credit card)

The cost will always add up to £126.50 but as it says on the website:

"One payment of £32.89 and three payments of £32.87 will be collected from your bank or building society account every three months. If you choose this option, your licence will be paid for in arrears; because of this, a small premium of £1.25 per quarter is included in your payment."

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/waystopay/directdebitintro.jsp

This is why that option is slightly more.

innovate

KTF wrote:

The cost will always add up to £126.50 but as it says on the website

Not according to the website's calculator, it won't. And as I tried to explain in my previous posting, it appears as if 12 monthly direct debits actually only pay for 11 months.

KTF wrote:

This is why that option is slightly more.

You just said the cost will always add up to £126.50

I think Grumbler's suggestion to pay one amount of £126.50 upfront with a cashback credit card is the smartest way of paying the fee.

economiser

Perhaps my warning about DD’s was not too clear. I just wanted to draw attention to their risks and limitations.

My understanding is that when you sign a direct debit mandate you authorise the debiter to debit any amount at any time from your bank account. You cannot impose limits on either the amount or the frequency of the debits with your bank. In effect you give the debiter open access to your account.

Mistakes do occur as I have learnt to my cost in the past before I understood the risks.

You may think the bank’s direct debit guarantee will solve any problems. You may think you only have to call the bank and they will recredit you account in the event of you finding an error. In fact they cannot do this. You have given the debiter the right to debit whatever they like. You will have to get the debiter to tell the bank that they have made an error and then the bank will credit your account. My bank did help me with this and negotiate on my behalf but they made it clear they could not make a repayment if the debiter did not agree. This can, and in my case did, take several days to resolve.

Personally I do not find this situation acceptable and I suspect that most people sign up to DD’s without understanding the risks.

bootman

When I got got my renewal through I just called up and arranged to pay it monthly. It sounds complicated how they word it, but I found that it was all very efficiant and they set up the d/d with no problems.

They did used to charge extra for d/d but monthly is now the same as paying it all in one hit.