TV Licensing Direct Debit Annoyance!

davetrousers

OK I need to renew my TV licence, so I thought I would by monthly by direct debit. So off I go on the website. So I am expecting to pay about £11 a month but no it doesn't worlk like that.

From TV Licensing website:
You pay for your current licence in monthly instalments within the first six months. Then in the seventh month, you start to pay in advance towards your next licence with 12 monthly instalments of around £11 (so you make six payments before your new licence begins and six after). You continue paying for future licences in this way.

So you have to pay approx £22.60 for 6 months (this takes it up to the £135) then in month 7 you pay the £11 (ish) sum and carry on like that therafter.

Now that doesn't quite feel right to me, it makes me fell like that they will always be £67 up on me!

Might just pay for it in one go again!

podiluska

Well you can either give them £135 now, or £22. So at the moment, you'd be £113 up on them.

Milarky

That's the way the scheme is designed to work. In effect, you must start paying towards the next licence 6 months before it is due to start. If you bought a licence six months from now you would be expected to cough up the full amount (as licences are always 'payment in advance') but the balance owning isn't taken in one go because the advance payments already made offset these.

I agree it is disconcerting but it has to be that way or else people paying for TV licences by direct debit would be getting a discount relative to anyone who buys theirs once a year at the 'Post Office' [where they AREN'T sold any longer!]

In some ways it would be better to have bought your last licence first and signed up to the DD scheme. They then start to take 'normal' payments six months into the year (when you don't really miss them) and they carry on 'level' thereafter.

I]BTW no TV licence - but I don't watch TV either - get my stuff from tintinet for free[/I

Dickieburd

I agree with the OP they used to advertise on tv a while ago you can pay for your tv licence by monthly instalments by direct debit of around £11 a month, what they didn't tell you was that you have to cough up twice that for the first 6 months first.

The way we do it is pay by quarterly DD under £36 a quarter so if you allow £12 a month in your monthly bills then every third month they take their quarterly payment of £35 odds from your bank account.

1jacks64

I used to pay mine by Direct Debit but stopped when I realised that they are holding onto 6mnths of my money and now pay all in one go. When I was at the library I read in the Which? report that they had been contacted by at least one reader who thought this was bad.

Which? said that there is something like 12 million people who pay by TV Licence by Direct Debit and if they are doing this with all 12 million direct debit customers then they must be making quite a lot of interest on all this extra cash they are holding onto. I think that BBC Watchdog also mentioned something similar to Which? on this subject.

JohalaReewi

You can pay for your TV licence by credit card so a money saving way is to use a cashback card (and get a rebate), or a 0% on purchases card and spread the payments over several months interest free.

garrence

Also when you cancel they will generally keep several months of money - only refunding whole quarters or something. It's a right scam.

Lavendyr

ts_aly2000 wrote: »

I'll tell you what's a scam. Buying my licence on the 30th June last year when I moved in, and it expired on the 31st May of this year!!!!!!

So I had paid for a 12 month licence and only received 11 months.

Hi That is probably because you bought the license at the end of June. Like car tax, I think the TV license runs until the end of the month prior to the month in which you purchased the license. So I think that if you had bought the license on 1st July, the license would have run until 30th June the next year.

LittleVoice

ts_aly2000 wrote: »

Yes maybe. But they certainly don't make that clear. The first I knew of it was when the letters started in mid-May.

Well, you could have looked at the licence you originally bought. Surely it gave the expiry date?

Lavendyr

ts_aly2000 wrote: »

But, what I possibly find even more amazing is that I have two argumentative people here pointing out the error of my ways rather and relishing in the righteousness of their television licence, and on a money savings forum no less.

Excuse me, I was not trying to be "argumentative" in the slightest, and nor am I "relishing in the righteousness" of anything. Nor do I see where LittleVoice was, either, for that matter.

I was simply trying to explain why what happened to you, happened. As a matter of fact, the reason I know that the TV license system works as it does, is because it happened to me as well. I only wanted to pass on the information I gained from having experienced the same thing.

I am new here and I signed up because the forums seemed like a great place to get advice. I've been reading for a while and have already learned a lot, and I thought I might be able to help, so I signed up and posted a reply to you. I do apologise - clearly I have wasted both your time and my own.

Kind regards,

Lavendyr

viktory

Personally, I don't see the problem - unless you are likely to want to cance the licence. As I don't see that ever happening I am happy to only pay £11 a month.