Some of you might recall your humble blogger's apoplexy over receiving a letter out of the blue threatening:
You may be cautioned and interviewed in compliance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, 1984 or Scottish criminal law. This interview may then be used for the purposes of prosecution, including a court appearance and a fine of up to £1000.
Peter, of the TV Licensing blog, advised me:
Ignore the letter. As Liz rightly says, even if you went to the time and effort of responding (which you're not obliged to do, despite what they tell you) they'd only ignore you anyway.
Moving closer to Manchester [and possible work], that seemed to be an end to that. Not a bit of it. This excrescence seems to be going on all over Britain. After the fourth letter, I did phone up and was immediately asked my name.
Now, here's where I was within my rights not to answer - I was doing them a favour by calling, with respect to the address I was living at - but that didn't seem to phase them.
I decided to tell them, as I have nothing to hide and owe nothing to them. Their letter had said that if you gave them the details they wanted, then that was an end to the matter, unless their detector van picked something up.
Now of course I didn't believe a word of it but it was still a shock to get a follow-up letter, not from Manchester but from Bristol:
Thank you for telling us that you don't need a TV Licence. It is unfortunately necessary for TV Licensing to visit homes to confirm there is no TV being used. We do this because, when we make contact on these visits, a quarter of people are found to need a TV Licence.
Now that is not what the previous letters stated. The impression was clearly given that if you 'confessed' you were the occupier of the premises, the detector van did the rest and that was all that was necessary.
Instead, I find that whether or not the detector van detects a TV being used, they're still going to come into my home. That's what they really want to do. Peter's advice was therefore sound - don't trust the bastards because they lie.
We all read about the lies of Brown or the lies of this department or that and we do believe it but it doesn't really come home to us until we can compare two separate letters from a government utility, using standard forms and those forms are either a lie or at the very least, highly misleading.
Deliberate misinformation to gain access to one's home.
Call me naive but I'm shocked to see such a bald-faced lie in print, from what is meant to be an official section of the state. I know I blog a lot about these things but to see it in front of my eyes is ... well ... a shock.
So now, by playing along with them, I'm waiting each evening for the knock on the door from the State Stasi who have the power to prosecute me if they see anything they construe as evidence - it could be something the previous owners had done.This is a country of rights? Seems more to me like a case of playing the bully .
This is an ad on my site from this morning. Note the tone.
The same thing happened to me when I bought a digital set top box, because my original died doing an up date.
ReplyDeleteI purchased it from argos and they asked my name and address, which I gave them.
I later got a threatening letter from the TV lash-up people saying I didn't have a license.
Argos had not left a space between the house number and the street name.
It seems that the computer cannot tell the difference. Although the letter was addressed properly.
I phoned them up, gave them a piece of what was left of my mind did not receive an apology, but haven't heard from them since.
tell them you only use it for watching DVDs that really winds them up:)
This is more like Russia than I imagine Russia is.
ReplyDeleteWhoever would believe one could be hounded and imprisoned for not having a tv licence?
Well now you know why I get so annoyed and have to speak out about certain things. I live with it day in and day out!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds angry and aggressive doesn't it? Sorry xx
ReplyDeleteWell when they turn up ask them for their search warrant. If they don't have one then tell them to sod off.
ReplyDeleteI always give false addresses when I buy TV equipment. I usually use the local council offices even though I actually have a TV license.
Doing my bit to screw up the databases.
Thanks for linking to me.
ReplyDeleteThat's a fairly typical response from them, demonstrating aptly the TV Licensing mentality that you're either a licence holder or a licence evader.
You can now expect one of their visiting officers to call at your home. Remember that you're not obliged to cooperate with them, but it will save you from further scrutiny (at least in the short term) if you do.
After poking about your private space the visiting officer will be satisfied that you don't need a licence. Unfortunately, because the database isn't actually as good as they tell everyone, there's probably another 2 or 3 threatening letters to your address that have already been processed. Expect them to arrive on the doormat as usual.
Within a couple of months word will have reached their database that you don't need a licence. It will leave you alone for the next year or so and then the entire cycle will repeat it self.
Something to look forward to...