observe deadlines
Without direct debit, a penalty is threatened more quickly: no more letters for the broadcasting fee
The broadcasting fee costs EUR 220.32 per year. If you transfer instead of paying by direct debit, you should remember the payment dates exactly.
© Andreas Steidlinger / Getty Images
If you would like to transfer the broadcasting fee (formerly GEZ fee) in the future, you should mark the deadlines in red on the calendar. There will soon be no reminders by letter, the reminder fees are high.
The contribution service would like to save costs and pay more money to the public broadcasters. To this end, the community facility will in future abolish the sending of transfer slips and letters that have been reminding recipients without a direct debit mandate for many years to pay the former GEZ fee. The pitfall: Although the contribution service will remind you once of your outstanding payment, repeat offenders will then have to reckon with overdue fines of at least eight euros.
The contribution service is organizing the transition as follows: All customers who have not yet given automatic direct debit authorization will receive a final letter in the coming weeks. It contains dates for future payments and instructions on how to switch to direct debit. “This request for payment and the payment dates specified therein are valid until something changes in the amount of the contribution,” explains the contribution service.
Dunning fees only after the last call
Afterwards, defaulting payers only get a final reminder if no money has been received by the first deadline. If this letter also has no effect, a late payment penalty of 1 percent of the outstanding contribution debt is due, but at least 8 euros.
It then becomes expensive for the unteachable – because the contribution service only reminds you of the payments once and not every quarter. This means that even if the first payment was transferred with a surcharge, but the transfer is forgotten again at the next appointment, there will no longer be a free reminder, but the reminder fees will be charged immediately.
E-mail is not a solution, direct debit is the method of choice
To avoid this entirely, the service advises switching to direct debit. In any case, only a small group is affected by the new regulation, a spokesman said star. “Almost 5.5 percent of the approximately 46 million contributors receive the one-time payment request.” The conversion can be carried out online by entering the entry number.
In general, the change states: “The broadcasting fee is owed by law, so there is no need for a payment request. In addition, a one-time payment request is also common in other areas of public administration. In this respect, the contribution service follows common practice here.”
When asked why the usual reminder was not simply switched to an electronic notification by e-mail, the facility explained that this was not feasible at the current time for data protection reasons and against the background of the General Data Protection Regulation.