Threatening letter

smallzoo2

My son has sent me this letter which was delivered to his girlfriend this morning. She recently lost her mum and has moved into her Mums old house. Like 99% of the young population she doesnt watch TV she uses her laptop/phone etc to watch all her media. 

What is the best course of action. She has had a hard time recently so this was quite a shock to her

Cornucopia

Like all of TV Licensing's mass mailings, this is just an elaborate fishing trip to try to get people to buy licenses, whilst being necessarily ambivalent as to whether one is needed or not.   The letters are sent in their millions, and this particular one was also sent in April and June.

To give you a flavour of the subterfuge...

- There is no "investigation", they simply don't have the authority or the resources to investigate as we would understand it.   The only thing they could do is phone or call in person, and you are free to ignore either of those things or tell them to go away.   

- They will have sent as many as 3 million of these letters in November but they still only have around 300 field staff.   Assuming that some kind of "investigation" takes a person 2 days to complete, that's a maximum of 4,500 investigations - or 0.15% of the letters sent that each talk about an investigation being opened.   

- There is no "enforcement division" - there are no physical regional bases for TV Licensing, though there might be a handful of salespeople nominally assigned to a particular area.  

- They have no legal right to demand that anyone responds to their letters.   This wordplay is... unhelpful.

- They are trying to goad recipients into following one of the three options given.    Following the "No Licence Needed" route is not a bad option, at least for the first 2 years.   Ignore any of the implications that by following that route you are agreeing that they can "visit to check", because that still remains protected under Common Law.

- "Scheduling a visit" is more wordplay.  There is no "schedule".   All there is is a big database with around 4 million unlicensed addresses on it.   This address is already on that database, and responding or not responding will make no difference to that.

- The maximum penalty is £1000.   The average penalty is c. £180.   TV Licensing also only prosecute about half the people they have viable evidence against.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/broadband-and-tv/tv-licence/

cattie

She may possibly need a license, so best to check first, see here; 
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one?&&WT.mc_id=mec_Search_Brand&gclid=CjwKCAiA1uKMBhAGEiwAxzvX986pA8CCB-nIKoU-pfoiMp-WF1lnFLD_8-XVP90d88rj9BLZnU00ZRoCOPoQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

powerful_Rogue

If she doesn't watch/record live TV as it's broadcast or use BBC iPlayer -  theyn just tell her to ignore these letters. I've got a lovely collection of them myself.

Point her in the direction of this Youtube channel to put her mind at rest - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chillijoncarne+tv+license

FreeBear

Long running thread here - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78628291 - Currently at 395 pages.

Bottom line, if you don't watch live scheduled broadcasts or use iPlayer, no licence required.

I've not had a TV licence for 6 years now (don't need one). Don't even bother opening any letters with a DL98 post code on the back. Only once have I had an agent banging on the door - Refused to answer any questions and told him to be on his way....

smallzoo2

Thanks to everyone

prowla

There was a link in the letter to register the fact that you don't have a TV.

As for a "visit"; if they do perchance turn up, do not let them into your house.

McKneff

This is a scam letter and not from the TV licensing authority. 
If it was real they would have named the owner and not 'The Legal Ocupier' 
I have never not had a licensing and I  and 2 of my friends have had these, we ignored them. 
Ring the TV place up and check but don't use any numbers on the letter

Cornucopia

McKneff said:

This is a scam letter and not from the TV licensing authority. 
If it was real they would have named the owner and not 'The Legal Ocupier' 
I have never not had a licensing and I  and 2 of my friends have had these, we ignored them. 
Ring the TV place up and check but don't use any numbers on the letter

The letter is completely genuine.   The same letter was sent in January and June, as you can see here.

http://www.bbctvlicence.com/

The idea that it is fake doesn't really make much sense, because the "calls to action" all relate to known TV Licensing contact info.

The BBC says it sends 36 million enforcement letters a year, so it's not surprising if some of them go astray.

Brie

McKneff said:

This is a scam letter and not from the TV licensing authority. 
If it was real they would have named the owner and not 'The Legal Ocupier' 
I have never not had a licensing and I  and 2 of my friends have had these, we ignored them. 
Ring the TV place up and check but don't use any numbers on the letter

How do they know who owns or occupies the house?  Is there a central agency for rentals?  Sorry - this is off topic but I'm curious.

Cornucopia

Brie said:

McKneff said:

This is a scam letter and not from the TV licensing authority. 
If it was real they would have named the owner and not 'The Legal Ocupier' 
I have never not had a licensing and I  and 2 of my friends have had these, we ignored them. 
Ring the TV place up and check but don't use any numbers on the letter

How do they know who owns or occupies the house?  Is there a central agency for rentals?  Sorry - this is off topic but I'm curious.

They know the name of the occupier if they've previously been told or if they buy data from marketing agencies.   They can only use a name for up to 6 months after it was most recently verified, so there are a lot of "legal occupier" letters.

Historically, there were also letter texts that were deemed so threatening and misleading that they were only ever sent to "legal occupiers" and never to named individuals.