maybe there was a misunderstanding or she didn't tell you the whole story.

If she didn't register with Billag she would not have received any bills, so there wouldn't have been any bills not to pay.

Billag had an interesting system they used to try to make you sign up, including letters with intentionally unclear wording and house visits by people who told you a big load of legal BS. And there were quite clear rules that could make you excempt if you ticked ceratin boxes. The Billag agents tried to obfusiate these rules, maybe because they were paid on commission, in other words, the more people they signed up the more money they got. If you ever asked if they didn't mind you recording the conversation and if they could repeat what they just said, they invariably would not repeat it and instead find some excuse to leave. Been there and done it myself.

But technically, if you never replied to any letters and never let these guys sign you up to anything (or never answered the door to them), you would never have received a bill. There would not have been a bill not to pay. And thus no money to be owed. This is what I think is suspicious about your story.

Serafe in contrast sends bills and it is up to you to take the necessary steps to opt out. If you don't take those steps, you are on the hook for paying. Your only hope for getting away without paying is that they are too incompetent to follow up. That's nothing I would count on to be honest IMHO.

Billag was an amateurish sleazy setup. Serafe is serious and has the law on their side.

Thanks for explanations, it is in line with what I think...

To further explain the case: she and I were living in furnished apartments (TV and Internet provided by the landlord). We registered in the City Hall, and time after we received the first Billag letters (I can't tell if they had invoices in them, but they said "you have to pay this"). We gave the letters to the landlord: as they were furnished serviced apartments, we thought it was not for us to pay that. I am pretty sure the landlord didn't pay anything.

After moving to another place, and after seeing that experience, she didn't pay the rest of the Billag letters she received - same as with Serafe, they got the address from the registry, but didn't do anyting: she didn't register, or unregistered, or all, or anything. Nothing. And I know because I was following her case closely .

As you said, seems Serafe is more "pro" than Billag, and will probably enforce the payment till the end - but so far, there is no proof of that.

Old good times...

I suspect Billag did not actually send her invoices but sent her forms asking her to sign up, acompanied by a letter threatening all sorts of legal trouble if she didn't sign up. They were probably the same letters that I got. The letters I got also said that even if I don't have a TV or radio or any of the other stuff on the list, I still need to sign up with them so that they know what I don't have.

A lawyer friend of mine said that this last point is legally absolute BS. His explantion was compliacted and I'm no lawyer so maybe I'm not explaining it right but from what I understood, the moment I sign anything I am entering into a contract, and a contract with zero content is of no inherent value to me and confers me no protection, but I am exposing myself to potential kanagaroo liabilities on their side. He said as long as I really didn't have any of the stuff on their list, it was legally perfectly acceptable and actually preferable to not reply.

Billag themselves claimed they sccesfully pursued something like 4000 cases a year. I guess this was intended to sound theatening, so you wouldn't even dream of trying. My friend said BS, those cases were probably all unpaid invoices. Anything else and they didn't have a case to stand on.

Another reason to not let them get as far as even sending a first invoice.

I think more and more people came around to understanding this, which is why the legal situation had to be re-written and Serafe came into being.

I know someone who's been 7 years TV-tax free (They don't own one). Initially they threw the Billag letters straight in the bin and they eventually stopped coming, and they've never gotten any mail from Serafe.

I just also got a 350chf bill and never watch Swiss TV or listen to Swiss radio. Sucks.

Yes hopefully the model will change. national TV stations subsidized by a tax are really an outdated idea. Like private station broadcasters like netflix, you should pay if you want to watch it.

I would not have a problem with one tv and one radio station for sports that otherwise get little attention, news, weather, emergencies and all of such. But paying 350,- so highly paid people can make entertainment that hardly anybody watches is an ancient thing that needs to die, many commercial parties offer such for much less or even free.

Yeah, I would happily have it disabled if that was an option. Unfortunately as I have a Cablecom card for UK TV channels that also gives me automatic access to Swiss ones, so I guess I just have to lump it for now. It does raise my subscription consts considerably though.

EDIT - LOL at the Serafe reviews on Google...

The model did change in 2019. The change was approved by the voting population with a very small margin:
https://www.bk.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/va...14/det595.html
That national TV should be subsidized by the people was approved with an higher margin just two years ago:
https://www.bk.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/va...04/det617.html

I agree. A news and current affairs radio channel and a similar TV channel would more than suffice.

The problem is - it's a small country and they would need four channels to cope with the languages.

Any light-entertainment shows should be able to survive with advertising or pay-per-view models if they are good enough.

Don't have to stream the same signal in the whole country. And they could distribute several language/sub signals along.

And as for 4 languages, maybe Romanisch people should accept that 60K people is simply not sustainable anymore to be provided in their own language.

That may work to some extent, but not entirely. Just like Zürcher don't care that the Jet d'Eau is running again the Genevois probably can't be bothered with the Böögg. Likewise most news on Germany and Austria, France, or Italy.

I was talking SRF, local news imho can be covered perfectly fine by the already existing local stations.

I think sympathy for the Rumantsch community and language strectches far beyond the people strictly part of it. This is why the Pro-Billag side in the recent vote continuously brought up Rumantsch as an example of what was at stake if Billag were to be abolished.

News and information in minority languages, especially Rumantsch but also Italian, is necessary for national cohesion in such a culturally and linguistically diversified country as Switzerland. If you shut down, say, Swiss broadcasting in Ticino, people will get their news from Italian TV which of course doesn't cover Swiss news. As a next step democracy is in crisis as people are expected to vote on topics they don't know enough about.

What I think is more important is that state TV must be obliged to absolue political neutrality, which they clearly are not always. Also, I think they should be finanaced through general tax revenue rather than having a parallel and ineffcinet collection system which only achieves the result that it p*sses people off. Thirdly, they should pull out of the entertainment side and leave that to the private channels.

The bulk of the money goes to SRF but also private radio and TV stations receive money out of the SERAFE collection:
https://www.persoenlich.com/medien/s...as-serafe-geld

FYI - Serafe has accidentally sent out about 224,000 accidental duplicate bills. If you've received a bill today (we did) double check that you didn't already pay it (we did, a week ago).

https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/doppelt-r...ein-ld.1560227

Deepl Translate of the above article:

I wonder how that will work, as there is no easy way to refund a payment made by Einzahlungsschein.

And many, many elderly just pay whatever bill arrives.

SRF *is* local news.
While I agree witht the rest, this is impossible. Even if they reported nothing but facts, the sequence and position would influence how something is perceived, and by how many it's seen.

People are biased, and that always shows in how and what they report. What should be done is present both/all relevant sides fairly. "Relevant" excludes, for instance, what's not supported by generally accepted science (considering a scientific topic).

Simply amazing that the Swiss voted yes in an " initiative" to paying this dumb Serafe fee! More money than sense