TV licence/tax payable

[woolybanana]

Sue them for harrassment

[Tancrède]

[quote user="EuroTrash"]…we kept declaring that we had no TV and we continued to receive a neverending stream of threatening and offensive letters which more or less said that they did not believe us and the only way to escape prosecution was, buy a licence…  Basically they are bullies.[/quote]

Quite.  This is an extremely unpleasant and harassing situation to be in, and I have been there myself. 

After receiving the third such letter in one month  -  the previous ones having been correctly replied to  -  and finding myself in the position of seeing red and having a couple of hours to spare, I decided to make contact directly with the persons responsible, in order to acquaint them personally with my feelings.  It can be done;  but required a certain amount of rat-like cunning and persistency.  The results were entirely satisfactory.

The abusive and decidedly threatening letter was, naturally, only signed with a consumer-friendly 'call-me-Doris' christian name.  No address, no office, no 'job title', no contact details whatever.  Armed with this decidedly thin information I phoned the Joe-Public call centre, and insisted that I had to speak with Doris.  It took quite a while to penetrate beyond this first line of defence, but my persistence was ultimately rewarded.

I doggedly stuck to the following points (which I had to repeat again and again ad nauseam) :

a)  That it was 'Doris' who had made first step in contacting me.

b)  That it concerned something that 'Doris' was asking me to do (for her).

c)  That owing to some unimaginable oversight the letter did not contain 'Doris's full contact details.

d)  That it was a serious and legal matter the content of which I was quite certain 'Doris' would not wish to have discussed with anyone in a subordinate position.  (This raised a few hackles on the way up.)

In the course of the next couple of hours I was passed to some dozen or so different offices, and spent a great deal of time listening to the William Tell overture played on an instrument resembling an egg slicer.  At every stage, as a precaution against being ditched, I took their names, contact details, direct phone numbers, etc. etc.

Finally (and I can assure you that it took blood, sweat and tears) I got through to the office which was responsible for issuing these letters.  'Doris' herself was by this time out to lunch.  This gave me an admirable opportunity to ask for the names and full contact details of those responsible without arousing too much suspicion.

At last I found myself in the position where I could reveal the true nature of my communication.  They were (to put it mildly) extremely surprised to be faced by a member of the public, and appeared to be a little perturbed when I explained that the seriousness of the subject matter made it necessary for me to record to conversation. 

I then politely, but I hope unpleasantly, asked a variety of questions. 

Did they think it was sensible and good practice to send out letters which did not give proper details of the sender, or any means of contacting her ?

Before sending out such threatening letters, did they refer to 'The File', and if not why not ?

Did they think it was sensible and good practice to send out such letters several times in one month to the same recipient, when replies had been duly returned ?  And if not, why did they do it ?

And so on and so on.  I asked the same unanswerable questions again and again and again.  After some fifteen uncomfortable minutes my interlocutor had the grace to admit that he understood that I was extremely dissatisfied and displeased with their service. 

I proposed that the whole matter could readily be forgiven and forgotten it if this abusive torrent was stopped instantly and permanently.  I indicated that were I to receive even one more such letter I would take advice as to how I might take legal action against them personally for activities which were both harassing and defamatory.  I had the gracelessness to explain that the success of any such legal action would be a matter of indifference to me :  merely to disrupt their lives and careers, and to inflict stress upon them would in itself be a sufficient gratification. 

I am happy to say that for the following ten years (until, that is, I departed for France) I did not receive one single further communication from the Television Licensing Authority.     

[JMB]

Bravo! You should be given a bloody medal. You know I think you could make a living out out doing that sort of thing for people who have the money, but not the time to pursue such things to the end. 

[mint]

OTOH, he could run courses in this sort of thing?

[JMB]

Yes and upon graduation from his courses, his students would be granted TV License Department Harassment licenses - for a fee of course.

[Alex H]

[quote user="EuroTrash"]The UK licensing authority certainly do maintain regular contract, we kept declaring that we had no TV and we continued to receive a neverending stream of threatening and offensive letters which more or less said that they did not believe us and the only way to escape prosecution was, buy a licence. They seem to think it is illegal not to have a TV.

The van said TV Licensing all over it and had aerials and stuff on the roof. It's entirely possible that there is no equipment inside and they were just trying to scare us into getting a licence.

Basically they are bullies.[/quote]

That' probably because it is not a 'proper' government department. The system is outsourced to Capita, who, from contact with fellow comtractors in a previous life, are not exactly the best company in the world to work for.

I had similar problems when we gave up the TV. In the end I had a visit from one of there 'agents'. He said that if he believed I had a TV in the house he could get a warrant and return accompanied by a police person and search my property. In a city of 250,000 with only 7 police on duty at any one time I thought this doubtful and declined his offer. He did not return.

[EuroTrash]

Gengulphus, you are a hero. I loved reading your post, I got so much pleasure out of imagining them squirm. It's years ago now but I still remember only too well the seeing red and the waves of pure hate, that came over me every time another letter from them turned up in the mailbox.

[crossy67]

Was a good read Gengulphus. 

They sound just like the Performing rights society, any one with a business in the UK will know all about these clowns.  I went through a spate of receiving phone and threatening letters calls two or three times a week asking why we don't have a licence to listen to music in work.  I lost count of the times I told them I listen to it on my own in my van, my wife listens to it on her own in the office, the fitters may listen to it on their own in their vans but we never listen to it with customers present or use it as a source of entertainment for customers and as such we are all covered by our own private TV licences.

It got to the point, after I had been called three or four times whilst in meetings I threatened them with legal action and took the name of the person I had spoken to.  I have since received one further phone call in two years, forgiveable I suppose.