SABC TV Licenses & Pritchard attorneys - Disgusted! Unprofessional! Useless!

<p>We have been paying our TV License for years with a once a year debit order that ran. We closed the account but forgot to update details at SABC... yes... our bad.</p> <p> </p> <p>We received an sms (out of the blue about 2 years down the line) saying that we are behind. Ok. fair enough.... time to pay up on our side. No problem. We went online and changed our email address etc to be sure that we will now in future receive correspondence from SABC and received a statement with the outstanding amount as well as penalties.</p> <p> </p> <p>Penalties I dont see why we should pay as I have only once in ALL the years of having a TV license received confirmation that I actually have a license and not once have we received any other notification that we need to make payment. Also, besides owning a TV, we do NOT watch TV in our home as there is nothing of interest to us on any channel. Our aerial is not even plugged in! </p> <p> </p> <p>Now 2 years down the line we get the first notification and due to our mistake we wanted to rectify the fault on our side. </p> <p>What a stuff up!!! I emailed requesting a full statement as at the beginning of the statement received after going online, there is an amount that can not be accounted for. I queried this and the penalties and lack of correspondence.</p> <p>Needless to say, shortly after that, I received a letter from Pritchard attorneys (aka just as bad as SABC themselves).</p> <p> </p> <p>I made a small payment just to show good faith that I plan on paying the account, however in my emails I did state that I wont pay the penalties nor the unaccounted for amount until I receive the FULL statement. About 2 - 3 days after making a 2nd small payment I get a final demand from Pritchard & an email from SABC stating that the amount paid was not the amount we agreed on? WHAT? We didnt agree on anyting as NO ONE from SABC or Pritchard has the decency to respond to anything EVER!</p> <p> </p> <p>To stay on top of the situation, I emailed once a week (max every 2 weeks) to anyone and everyone I could link to both Pritchard and SABC TV licenses.</p> <p> </p> <p>I still have not received ANY response from either SABC or Pritchard. Note it's been about 6 month since the first notification from SABC via sms.</p> <p> </p> <p>STILL WAITING?!</p> <p> </p> <p> </p>