TV Licence Fee

The surcharge is not for paying by direct debit, it is for paying in instalments. In effect it is a credit charge (disguised as a handling fee) because normally the whole fee is due up front, but by paying quarterly you are being extended credit - you are borrowing 3/4 of the fee for 3 months, 1/2 the fee for a further 3 months, and 1/4 of the fee for another 3 months. That's equivalent to borrowing the whole fee for 3/8 of a year. £5 as a credit charge for £142.50 represents about 3.5%, and for 3/8 of the year that corresponds to an annual rate of around 9.36% which is not cheap but hardly outrageous.

I bet you're right, but go for it, girl! I look forward to hearing what will happen.

What's wrong with it is that you'd be diddling them out of interest due them for letting you pay 1/6 of the fee 1 month late, another 1/6

2 months late, etc, and a 5th 6th 5 months late, equivalent to paying the whole fee 2.5 months late.

One of my friends has also gone through such circumstances. But h slowly got out of it. i am sure that in time to come you will als ge ur problem solved

I was very confused when I went to pay mine, I assumed that monthly meant monthly. In fact what they have done is split the annual fee into four payments and then taken them 4 successive monthly payments for the whole year.

I called them up and asked them if I could actually pay monthly and was told it was not possible.

Its annoying because I live in a shared house and it makes the bills more complicated, apparently I can get a refund if I move out before the end of the yearly period I have paid for.

Disliked the licence fee before I had to pay it, dislike it even more now.

Why not ask them for a paypoint card? Pay what you want, when you want just by walking in anywhere that takes paypoint.

Regards,

I get my own back too. I don't pay for the bloody thing. Not while they're giving J. Ross millions in "wages".

McK

I did not know you could do that, they didn't tell me when I called them.

They seem to keep it quiet for some reason, guess they'd rather everyone was on DD but I've one in front of me right now. Two tone blue swipe card. It has card number / name / membership number on the left. TV Licensing savings card on right.

Magnetic strip and Paypoint info on back.

Regards,

Are you sure that option's not restricted to benefit claimant's only?

Just don't pay the tax and disconnect the TV. If I could wean my wife off soaps ours would be for DVD only :(

Simply download all the episodes from the newsgroups and your wife can watch them without having to be in front of the TV at a particular time.

UK soap episodes usually show up on the newsgroups a day or so after they are first shown, often in HDTV (if you can spare the disk space to download 10GB or so per episode). US soaps show up a week or two

*before* they first appear on UK TV.

Use the savings in TV licence fee to get yourself a fast, unlimited Internet connection :-)

Or if it is BBC / ITV / C4, watch them on their website.

That would be unlawful.

I want her weaned off the soaps not pandered to

I'd rather expand my dvd subtitled collection

You sad soap watcher you.

They certainly will if you continue to use the TV after the licence runs out.

An if you are just talking about doing the same thing (or paying by some other method) when it does, I think you will find there are contractual obligations involved in starting that scheme.

TBH, it actually seems a very reasonable way to pay your licence fee, and is what I have done for several years now.

Funny.

It is perfectly possible, and is the way they seem to push most.

But only by (as in Judith's post) paying 6 months ahead and 6 months in arrears.

But with that you have to pay the full amount (no mater how many "bit" you pay it in) before the licence becomes due.

You shouldn't really advice people to break the law in a "legal" newsgroup :-)

Most of them are available perfectly legally (but for a limited time) via iPlayer or the equivalent from the other networks.

I have not said that I intend to do that - that would be dishonest.

My understanding is that the licence will run for a year - I will have paid for it after six months.

Having paid for the licence for the full year, I may decide that I never want to watch television again once that licence expires; hence I do not need to pay for the licence for the following year and will stop the direct debit.

Whether I change my mind at the end of the year and repeat the process must also be a possibility.

I am being no more underhand than they are when they state that the licence fee is £147.50. It isn't.

You still need a TV license to watch live TV shows streamed on internet web sites.

Chris