The torrent of nasty letters from TV Licensing continues.
You may recall back in October I wrote about TV Licensing, and the obnoxious tactics they were employing to try and make me buy a TV license for my place in Norwich – despite having previously declared to them that no live TV was being watched or recorded there.
Since then, I’ve received ten further letters, with no sign of them letting up. They are a litany of frankly horrific threats. It’s astonishing that any organisation in the UK can get away with sending such letters, let alone the BBC’s bully boys.
What to expect in court
Perhaps the worst of the lot is from December 2011. In it, TV Licensing do everything they can to suggest I’ll be taken to court. Bear in mind that at this point they have not established I am in need of a TV license. The letter begins:
You have not responded to our previous letters. We want to ensure you have the information you may need before a hearing is set at your local court.
Please read the information below carefully and keep for your records. You will be allowed to take it into court with you.
It continues (below a frankly bizarre ‘cut out and keep’ line):
If you are asked to appear in court, this is what you can expect to happen:
- You can appoint a lawyer to represent you, or you may represent yourself.
- Evidence collected during an enforcement visit to your property is used by the court to decide the penalty for TV License evasion.
- The court has the power to impose a fine of up to £1,000, plus legal costs.
- If your property needs a TV License, you will still need to buy one.
And finally:
How to avoid a court summons
It is illegal to watch television programmes as they are being shown on TV without a TV License – no matter what device you use. The only way to stop this investigation from going any further is to do one of the following:
- Buy a TV License […].
- Let us know you don’t need one […].
The irony is that their very last suggestion – “let us know you don’t need one” – is precisely what I did do, back in February 2011. For all the good that did.
As I wrote before, the wording used by TV Licensing is deliberately constructed to be threatening and intimidating. Enforcement. Evasion. Penalty. Court. Hearing. Legal costs. It’s just nasty.
So, to summarise:
- I’m a TV License payer, for the property where a license is required and live TV is watched.
- I’ve met the obligations of TV Licensing by identifying another property as not requiring a TV license.
- That property has since been bombarded more than once a month with aggressive, abusive and obnoxiously threatening letters.
Does anyone still think TV Licensing is a good thing?
It’s all lies: You are under no legal obligation at all to communicate or cooperate with TV Licensing miscreants. Not doing so does not leave you at heightened risk of “investigation” or “court summons” as these require evidence TV Licensing simply don’t have.
As you’re aware, everything said by TV Licensing is a hollow threat designed to coerce payment from people. Sickening that the BBC is behind this organisation and condone its tactics.
The swines even do this sort of thing to the bereaved children of someone who’s recently died. The link you require is http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/making-a-complaint-AB7/ – it’s the only way to stop them.
I see the French government suggested counting computer screens as equivalent to televisions. How long before we see that one tried here, do you think?
From the Making a complaint page:
“We serve almost 31 million addresses and aim to offer an efficient service to all of them. When there is a problem, we rely on feedback from our customers to try to put things right as quickly as possible.”
You know what though? The onus is on them to get it right. They provide a mechanism by which a household can report that they don’t need a license. I used it. They confirmed they got the message. Their systems should not be so poor that they then send me a torrent of abuse. It’s completely unacceptable.
Relying on your customers to tell you that you screwed up is an atrocious way to do business. TV Licensing, as a commercial operation licensed by the BBC, should NOT be making mistakes like this. But guess what? Take a look at the “Who we are” page, and try to disguise your shock and dismay when you find the BBC outsourced this to a large SI: http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/who-we-are-AB4/
What interest does said large SI have in doing a good job, rather than just blanket-mailing the entire nation with threats and abuse? Presumably the cost of managing and maintaining a proper database is greater than “wait til we’re told we’re wrong”.
I wonder what SLAs, checks and measures the BBC has in place to ensure the service is being delivered correctly?
What SLAs, checks and measures the BBC has in place? Next to sod all or about as good as that, I expect. Look at the negotiating teams: on one side, you have the legendary Capita that has over a quarter of its business process outsourcing market; and on the other, you’ve got the BBC Trust of a couple of Lords and some other company directors, representing the viewers in theory. That was never going to end with a good result for the viewers, was it?
Externalising costs onto the rest of us, or “wait til we’re told we’re wrong”, is how those companies make much of their money. Congratulations and good luck if you can see a way to make their current misbehaviour cost them more than they calculated.
You are under the false assumption BBC TV Licensing can be reasoned with when they can’t. All their paid to do is collect money for the BBC and don’t care about anything else.
Because of the strict commision based targets they’ve been set lots of innocent people have found themselves in court because of fabricated statements………………Yes once forms have been signed the goon has added his own version and people end up in court because of it.
http://www.tvlicenceresistance.info/forum/