TV Licence and proof of purchase

smileycon

I read a recent BBC news article that 107 people were actually jailed between 2011 and 2013 as a result of not paying. Obviously this must be scare tactics... right? :S

IainCC

P.S. forgot to give me actual replies....

First things first....do/did you actually need a tv license?

Yes I do

Have you downloaded or printed the Licence?

No, but I will be from now on!

the tv licence people had system problems and did not take payments. this happened to me also. i paid online in november and recieved a confirmation of payment email. i then received my paper licence 2 wks later stating payment in full.....[SNIP]..... money was not taken from my account. their fault not mine.

Sounds like the same situation as me, and I have to say I am tempted to take the same approach.

Having a piece of paper that states it is a TV licence and actually having a valid TV licence are two entirely different things.

I could go into a post office to renew my car tax and pay with a cheque which later bounces.
I would still have the tax disc and a receipt from the PO, but the disc would not be valid.

I would argue this is a slightly different case. If I paid by cheque I would probably need to use a cheque guarantee card, in which case the bank would pay the post office (and then charge me a very large amount of money for doing so). But then, not many people pay by cheque nowadays, and not many places will take them even if you try

Imagine it was a shop and this had been a cash transaction. The point of them giving me a receipt is to be able to prove that I made the purchase, as the cash itself would not really be traceable to my specific purchase.

My proposal to them is going to be that I pay a pro-rata lump sum to license from April to September (which is when the one I "bought" would have expired). I don't want to go direct debit, and I don't want to pay a full £145.50 to license for another full year (there is a chance I will move out in September and wouldn't need it then).

Once again, thanks for your responses everyone.

Cheers,

Iain

spacey2012

They only have "one bit of paper" it is called a TVL 178 form and the person who signed it will be receiving a summons to attend court for No TV licence.

They are contractors on commission, they do not care who signs, they get a name and signature they get some pay.

I would let who was daft enough to sign it worry about it.

unholyangel

IainCC wrote: »

P.S. forgot to give me actual replies....



Yes I do



No, but I will be from now on!



Sounds like the same situation as me, and I have to say I am tempted to take the same approach.



I would argue this is a slightly different case. If I paid by cheque I would probably need to use a cheque guarantee card, in which case the bank would pay the post office (and then charge me a very large amount of money for doing so). But then, not many people pay by cheque nowadays, and not many places will take them even if you try

Imagine it was a shop and this had been a cash transaction. The point of them giving me a receipt is to be able to prove that I made the purchase, as the cash itself would not really be traceable to my specific purchase.

My proposal to them is going to be that I pay a pro-rata lump sum to license from April to September (which is when the one I "bought" would have expired). I don't want to go direct debit, and I don't want to pay a full £145.50 to license for another full year (there is a chance I will move out in September and wouldn't need it then).

Once again, thanks for your responses everyone.

Cheers,

Iain

They have an application for a tv license by you from an earlier date. They (presumably) have proof you haven't paid for that license - albeit by their own mistake. That means a debt is still owing. Don't get me wrong, I'm license free, don't need one thanks to Netflix and unotelly (and its cheaper than a tv license - you're effectively paying £12 a month to have ad free bbc channels). But in law you're not supposed to be in a better position than you would have been through someone making a mistake. And in any other service, they would be able to claim for payments not taken - just like you can claim back if you discovered some months later they were still taking payment for a service you had properly/officially cancelled.

A better comparison I think would be DVLA and road tax. If you pay online by card and then several months later discover they never took payment, do you think they wouldn't be chasing you for the full amount?