What happens if you move?

For an example if you have paid the Serafe bill til August, but move to a new place in May. Would I then need to pay it from May onward in new place?

You contact them and give them your new address and they transfer it to that address.
If you leave the country you send them a copy if your deregistration and they will reimburse you the months you have paid for after that date.

Well I assume taxes are simpler.

You don't need to know exactly who is living in each apartment. They need to know:

• Your address to know where to reach you
• Your marital status
• If you own or rent your apartment (issue is not with single family homes)
• If you have children living with you, then this is reported in your tax declaration, however the issue is not with children but other adults in the same building from my understanding
• If you are living with someone/sharing an apartment and complete separate tax declarations, then this could be an issue for the information that Serafe needs.

The simplest way to fix this would be to have apartments numbered however this would be a huge undertaking.

Clearly Serafe is just going to be a repeat of the Billag shambles.
They've used really old data from the town halls.

Our friend left Switzerland at the end of June and her mail is redirected to our CH postbox for a year. We have now received a 2019 Serafe invoice for her despite the fact that she has not been a resident now for over 6 months!

Her name is at the top. Underneath there is the name of a woman who used to reside in another flat in the same building. I think she moved out a couple of months before our friend. So the data they have on file is from about March/April 2018. Utterly pathetic.

Presumably had this other woman's name been at the top and our friend's name underneath the envelope wouldn't have been redirected. Either way both names are correct and neither are subject to the charge at the address invoiced. This is just another example of huge a waste of resources.

Serafe, it would appear, is actually getting data from town halls.

Billag was more in the business of copying names from letter boxes and doorbells. It was just too easy to throw them a curved ball.

How I miss them already.

szhjcn and clocker, you two should apply for a job at Serafe as address data experts.

I just (first time) received a letter from "Serafe" the envelope didn't have a stamp on it so I'm not sure it's a legit letter.

I did google translate and a line or two translate to:
<<
totally in favor of public service in the field of electronic media

Swiss collection agency for radio and television
>>

it's a bill for ~213 chf

Can anyone shed some light on this for me - do I need to pay it? Who's it for?

Thanks for the help. Doing additional research now.

Serafe

In short - it's the new Billag.

Serafe is the new Billag. You need to pay this one, unfortunately.

It should be the legit bill from Serafe (the company that replaces Billag for collecting the radio/TV licence fee) if the postal account for the payment is 01-145-6.

The complete fee for 1 Jan - 31 Dec 2019 is CHF 365. In order to spread the payment processing over the 12 months of the year, households are being allocated at random to 12 groups. Group 1 people pay the whole year now. Other groups pay for only part of the year, and they will receive their first bill for the full 12 months when that expires. A bill for CHF 213 would cover 1 Jan - 31 July. Before 31 July, expect to receive a bill for CHF 365 to cover 1 Aug 2019 - 31 July 2020.

I asked several times but wa told if it was not my bill in which the internet was it was not my problem. So I will do what they told me on the form.

I can't afford it anyway so fingers crossed

My bill, received yesterday is for 161.62chf .. 01 Jan -- 30 Apr..

I must be in a special group

Check if the amount of people registered on your address is correct.

Have you received an enterprise bill instead of a private household one? That can be more than CHF 1 per day, and for 2019 is determined by the company's annual turnover in 2017.

Hmm I didn't notice that part.. It's addressed to Mr & Mrs H.. I didn't notice if it mentions the kids.

as said above there are 12 groups each pays a different amount to cover a different time period.

Though I hear in some Kantons its messed up as the household details from the council wasn't correct/uptodate

I can't understand why they didn't take over the billing and data from Billag rather then go through this costly exercise.. hope the payment options change from paying the whole thing in bulk as thats annoying

Thank you everyone for the information. I guess I'll pay it --- but just know, I'm paying it while glaring at it in a negative way.....

The amount of people has no bearing (unless it's a business), it's per household.

Tom

If the household consist of one single person with one old tube radio (in the future even w/o and device) or the household consist of 10 person with multiple TV, computers, radios in car, shower, phone, and a holiday flat stuffed with the latest TV devices does not make a difference. In both instances the fee is CHF 365

All our usage is 3 to 4 football matches a year over the SRF website as a stream.

Effective this is more expensive than buying tickets and sit in the stadium