OT: Paying for TV Licence

Roger Mills · 2010-10-26T11:13:40+00:00

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...

Oct 26, 2010 23 Replies

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Mike Tomlinson 15 years ago

In article , Martin Jay writes

Yeah, I'm aware of their poor reputation for customer service. But the inducements* to get me to change banks were too good a deal to resist.

They're blaming their problems on the attempt to integrate Abbey National's IT systems into the Santander Borg, apparently they have bitten off more then they can chew and have yet to burp.

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Mike Tomlinson 15 years ago

In article , Chris Leuty writes

I know, I know :-)

See my reply to Martin Jay. I'm keeping my FD a/c open just in case.

That said, FD's service, for me, has taken a nosedive in the last few months. Apart from the TV licence cockup, over which I am losing no sleep, Santander has been fine.

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