Printable View
I cancelled my tv licence about 6 months ago as it's so rare I watch live tv (or iplayer).
I declared it properly with TV licensing, however I have just received a debt collection notice email from https://hahncollections.co.za/# who are acting on behalf of SABC (https://www.tvlic.co.za/tvlic/contact-us/), - who, for the past 3 years used to send me confirmation that my direct debit tv licence was paid.
Any ideas? Should I just ignore, or?
If like the UK I would write back outlining you have followed all procedures required and have proof
That said I am not sure if the difference between the UK and South Africa when it comes to the TV licence.
I would guess you need in country advice.
I've never even visited SA or had anything to do with any of them. I have just spoken to UK TV licencing who have confirmed that I don't owe them anything, they said they suspect it's a scam email and to ignore it.
It's just unsettled me as they seemed to know when I paid my licence, and now seem to know that it wasn't paid. They did slightly mis-spell my name however, and seem to think that I paid it yearly, but I was actually paying it quarterly.
I get around 5 TV licensing scam emails a day for some reason, they are all scams.
The genuine TV Licensing stuff is run by Crapita and it's fairly awful and it took about two years of them being painful for them to accept we don't have a TV or watch anything other than the odd Netflix or Apple TV series.
I also get approx 5 TV licensing scam emails a day. They are typically confirmed as a scam by right clicking on the senders name and seeing that its not an official U.K. email address
Authentic emails are sent from:
donotreply@tvlicensing.co.uk
God knows how many scams I get a day, as my email client is pretty good at shoving them straight in the bin, however what has made me wonder about this one is the fact that they were sending me "confirmation that your tv license has been paid" emails for the last few years when I used to pay it, and now I don't, they have appointed a SA debt collector, - just seems like a weird coincidence. Obviously I dont want this to affect my credit rating
Seems bizarre, why have you been receiving direct debit confirmations from SABC for the past 3 years?
Didn’t that seem strange?
Yes, I did think it was a little weird, I just presumed it was a third party contractor for tv licensing.
The two companies do seem genuine - don’t suppose they could have mixed you up with someone of same name and slightly different email in SA?
hmmmm - yes, that could be true. I am loathed to contact them - from what I see of debt collection agencies, regardless of what you have to say, any communication just encourages them!
I suspect the emails are legitimate but it's likely a case of mistaken identity. I used to live in SA and cancelling your TV licence is/was notoriously difficult.
The SABC had previously handed me over to a debt collection agency for non-payment of my TV licence - this despite telling them I no longer owned a TV! I recall having to provide affidavits to that effect to resolve it.
If you've never lived/visited SA, then I don't think you'd have much to worry about as they'd need to blacklist you according to your SA ID number which you wouldn't have.
But, for peace of mind, I don't think an email to the debt collection agency would hurt.
(We left SA over 10 years ago but I had another run-in with the SABC a few years back when we sold our house there and the purchasers wanted the TV included. It took me months to convince them that I no longer owned a TV. It required more affidavits and then they refused to cancel my licence because they said that I'd used the wrong format - I downloaded it from their website! Eventually, I gave up but it seems they must have finally got the message as the letters of demand stopped coming.
Sounds like a nightmare! Yes, I think I'll send the agency a quick mail, ask them not to send me anymore and if they do i'll just block them. They subtly mis-spelled my name also. Thanks