TV Licence and Standing Orders

Seaship

hello,

why is that the TV licence people will not accept standing order as a payment method...

for many people this is the most effective way to pay.....

does anyone else agree? has anyone else found this a problem?

does anyone know of any ways around this? (that are not direct debits which are not good for people on benefits and not payment cards which are nto good for people with bad memories)

i would be interested in what people have to say about this subject

cheers

chris_m

Why do you say that direct debits are not good but standing orders are?
Surely it's effectively the same thing - money goes from one account (yours) to another (TV Licencing's) on (or after) a given day. When you know the day, you just budget around it, just the same for both.

liam8282

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/pay-for-your-tv-licence/payment-methods/

To be fair you can pay in most ways except SO. I fail to see the difference in DD & SO in this situation?

Seaship

i am thinking for certain people on benefits...

for eg...if someone gets paid every 4 weeks on the same day they can set up a SO..it will leave the account and pay the bill...

but a DD has to be on the same DATE every month...which may fall on a different day...

therefore...if the money isnt the account...charges will be applied...

i work with people who cannot effectively budget...they can set up SO's for most of their bills except tv licence...that is DD only or via card payment scheme...which inevitably the people i work with are unable to keep to..

and thats kind of why i was asking....

Mikeyorks

Most large organisations - and in particular Govt agencies who have complex Reference formats and big client bases - hate SOs. Because the setting up is in the charge of the customer ...... they fail to specify the account / Reference correctly and the admin costs of tracing all the erroneous payments is huge.

DDs are validated by the originator ..... so they go straight to the customer account at minimal cost.

getmore4less

4 weekly pay means the payment will ALWAYS be in ahead of the actual payment date and there is a 4 week payment where no DD is taken.

It is down to being able to budget and not spending money that is destined for something else.

Seaship

interesting points....i can see how it is beneficial for the massive orgs...stray payments etc will be tedious and possibly expensive to recover...

and i appreciate that it is down to people to budget their money effectively...that makes total sense....

but i work with folk with mental health issues and substance misuse issues and if the bill does not get paid on the day that they receive their benefits...it dont get paid..

i wonder if the tv licencing people would rather spend a bit more on processing SO's or spend the money on sending people out to peoples homes...taking people to court...sending people letters...etc..

effective budgeting for some people might mean making sure that their bills get paid before they get their hands on their money....which means SO's...

does anyone think that i have a cat in hells chance of getting the TV licensing to look seriously at this??..

do i even have an axe to grind?

Mikeyorks

Seaship wrote: »

does anyone think that i have a cat in hells chance of getting the TV licensing to look seriously at this??..

I'm afraid not. The payments card / savings card is where you'll be pointed at as being applicable for the people you help. It isn't just a few stray payments that would result from SOs ........ it's thousands, and they're difficult to trace without writing the originating Bank. And they hide behind 'Data Protection' and are loathe to even pass a letter on.

None of the big agencies (HMRC etc) accept SOs for that reason ...... you can be sitting on a number of unallocated payments for the same customer yet churning out reminders / threats at the same time. It's an error prone process you simply don't get involved in.

onlypaddy

chris_m wrote: »

Why do you say that direct debits are not good but standing orders are?
Surely it's effectively the same thing - money goes from one account (yours) to another (TV Licencing's) on (or after) a given day. When you know the day, you just budget around it, just the same for both.

A standing order is controlled by the customer. Dates, times, everything and the money is effectively pushed from the customers account to the organisation.

A direct debit is the other way around - the company controls it and pulls the amount from the account.

juno

Standing order into one account, direct debit from that account.

That's how I do mine.

Seaship

Juno i think that that is the route that we need to take although it seems like a lot of effort to a pay a bill that people dont have a choice about...controversial!

also...Npower....British Gas.....EON....Scottish Power.....Yorkshire Water can all cope with SO's.....somehow......?

also....its not that difficult to make sure you include a ref number on yer SO payment

its easier than trying to pay with a card the whole time...

i will be writing the TV licence people a letter...and in the meantime i may have to go the Juno route,,,..,