My TV Licence expires at the end of this month and, since I shall be away when it expires, I applied for a replacement on-line using my CapitalOne credit card. I asked for a paper licence to be sent by post rather than settling for an 'electronic' one.
I received a confirmatory email that my licence had been renewed. A few days later, the new paper licence arrived in the post - valid until October 2011.
However, I noticed something slightly odd with my credit card transactions. Purchases made using a CapitalOne credit card first show up in a 'Pending' category on their on-line system, and move into 'Current Transactions' when they have been fully processed. In my case, there were TWO (i.e. duplicate) pending transactions - each for the full £145.50
After a few days, both of these pending transactions disappeared, but neither made it into the 'Current transactions' list.
A few days later still, I received a letter from TV Licensing saying that "due to a technical problem" they had been unable to process my payment and had thus revoked my licence - and I still needed to pay.
My immediate reaction was to think that, if challenged, I could produce a licence valid until October 2011, and that if they couldn't organise themselves to collect my payment properly, that was THEIR problem - not mine.
However, I thought that I probably wouldn't get away with that, so I rang their helpline and - after tearing them off a strip - gave them details of a *different* credit card (Halifax) to use for the payment. They said it had gone through ok.
That was several days ago, but it still hasn't appeared on my Halifax on-line list of transactions. Halifax don't display pending transactions
- but the available credit *has* gone down by the requisite amount.
I'm wondering what to do if it never shows up as a proper transaction on my Halifax card.
I am in possession of an apparently 'valid' licence and have bent over backwards to pay them. What is my position if they fail to collect it a second time?