How do they know?

Mr_Singleton

3 days after my nephew moved in to a new flat he got a letter telling him that the property was 'unlicenced'

What database are TV Licensing scalping to get this information?

societys_child

Was it addressed to your nephew personally or the occupier?


May be just a coincidence, letters go out all the time to addresses with no licence.

p00hsticks

I suspect that these days they just send letters from time to time to any Royal Mail address that either doesn't have a licence or has declared that they don't need one.

If by 'new flat' you only mean new to him, it could be that the previous occupant requested a refund when they moved out, which might have triggered a follow up letter to the new occupant.

Cornucopia

When the previous occupant moved out, they would have taken their Licence with them. Therefore TV Licensing would now have a "gap" on the database where that Licence used to be.

They send 80-90 million letters in a typical year. This is just one of them.

Gavin83

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

3 days after my nephew moved in to a new flat he got a letter telling him that the property was 'unlicenced'

What database are TV Licensing scalping to get this information?

Is he unlicensed and uses the service?

lincroft1710

Cornucopia wrote: »

They send 80-90 million letters in a typical year. This is just one of them.

That's about 3 for every household in UK. I shall have to complain as I haven't received a letter from them for well over a year!

Cornucopia

lincroft1710 wrote: »

That's about 3 for every household in UK. I shall have to complain as I haven't received a letter from them for well over a year!

It is - there are about 27-28 Million households. Presumably they send letters to business as well.

A whole chunk though, are those like the one the OP's nephew has received. They normally send those every month unless/until the householder does what TV Licensing tells them (that they do not legally have to do).

Ectophile

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

3 days after my nephew moved in to a new flat he got a letter telling him that the property was 'unlicenced'

What database are TV Licensing scalping to get this information?

They don't really need to "scalp" any database. The Royal Mail keeps a database of all properties in the country. They keep a database of all the properties that have TV licences. It's pretty easy to cross-reference the two and see which properties don't have licences.

Mr_Singleton

societys_child wrote: »

Was it addressed to your nephew personally or the occupier?


May be just a coincidence, letters go out all the time to addresses with no licence.

Addressed to the occupant as expected with data protection. A random TV licensing letter I could understand but having read it, it gave the impression it was specifically sent to a new occupant.

Having had bit more of a think about it leads me to think that MAYBE Royal Mail (as a privatised company) are ‘selling’ the details of re-directions to TV Licensing. The only other person that knew he was moving in at that time was the letting agent. The previous tenants had left 3ish months ago. Hmmmmmm.....

Mr_Singleton

Gavin83 wrote: »

Is he unlicensed and uses the service?

He doesn’t own a TV and like a typical millennial is more interested in YouTube and Netflix than anything being broadcast live which can easily be watched on a licenced set somewhere.

I was just interested in how TV licensing was able to target the letter to a new occupant. My gut feeling is something devious is going on.

Cornucopia

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

I was just interested in how TV licensing was able to target the letter to a new occupant. My gut feeling is something devious is going on.

There's devious and devious where TV Licensing is concerned. Sending a letter every month to people who have not broken any law - yes. Breaching data protection rules by acquiring data they have no right to use - no.

There's a long thread on the "In My Home" subforum which covers a huge amount of TV Licensing folklore.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/805699/tv-licence-article-discussion