TV Licence checkers. Your experience?

B0bbyEwing

So I cancelled my TV licence a few months ago which is something I should've done years ago really but hey ho. 
Tonight I had my first "I've come to check you're not using....." knock at the door.

In fairness to the chap he was polite enough, told me pretty much straight away I can refuse it (which I did) & left it at that. I did ask him how often I'm likely to get someone knocking at the door about this because I've heard (only through he-says-she-says) others complaining about frequent visits. He said he couldn't answer this & he just goes where he's sent. He'll mark it as a refusal if I want & he was on his way.

I know there'll be the 'if you've got nothing to hide' brigade but how I see it is I've told them I don't need a licence & that's the end of it (as far as I'm concerned). I'll get back in touch if/when I need one in future.

So do you get something like quarterly knocks at the door to come & check on you because this will get annoying. 

MikeJXE

I have not watched live tv for 5/6 years 

Every couple of years I have filled in the form on line and never had a problem or a caller 

oldernonethewiser

I've been getting the TVL letters every month for almost 5 years. I have never responded to any of them nor contacted TVL for any reason. 

About 4 years ago a person turned up at the door stating that there was no record of a licence at my address. Could he come in and check. 

I told him he could not and away he went. 

kempiejon

Interesting reports about visits, I gave up TV from 1995 until 2002, never had a visit in that time, just 2 properties both licensed by prior occupiers. A couple of letters was about the limit of my interaction.
I've now been on licence continuously since 2015 though. Bloody love the live TV in the UK. 

Green_hopeful

You can register on the tv licence website to confirm you meet the requirements not to need a tv licence and then they don’t bother you. 

FreeBear

Green_hopeful said:

You can register on the tv licence website to confirm you meet the requirements not to need a tv licence and then they don’t bother you. 

There is no legal requirement to tell them that you don't need a licence. And if they decide to pay you a visit, the declaration won't stop them.

Not had a TV licence here for nearly 10 years now. Get the monthly letters which don't get opened, and only had a goon banging on my door once about 6 years ago. If you go hammering on someone's door, you can expect a hostile reaction, which is exactly what he got. Not seen another one since.

Petriix

You can formally withdraw the implied right of access under which people are allowed to approach your front door (e.g. to knock or post things through your letterbox). That way they would only legally be able to knock on your door with a relevant court order. Assuming that you don't watch any live TV (even streaming live events) or use the BBC Iplayer then they would never be able to get such a court order.

To give them credit, when I did this, they wrote a letter of acknowledgement and didn't bother me again. I later decided that I wanted to watch some live sport and bought a licence. 

B0bbyEwing

Green_hopeful said:

You can register on the tv licence website to confirm you meet the requirements not to need a tv licence and then they don’t bother you. 

Pretty sure I told them I meet the requirements when I applied for a refund on my licence because I no longer need one. 

What a drawn out affair it was as well.

Do you A, do you B, do you C, so on & so forth.

No I don't. I don't watch live TV of any description. 

There might have been an exception this coming Saturday but 1) I'm not paying £25 for it and 2) I've been ill & need my sleep. I'll watch the highlights on Sunday morning on YouTube.

JohnSwift10

B0bbyEwing said:

So I cancelled my TV licence a few months ago which is something I should've done years ago really but hey ho. 
Tonight I had my first "I've come to check you're not using....." knock at the door.

In fairness to the chap he was polite enough, told me pretty much straight away I can refuse it (which I did) & left it at that. I did ask him how often I'm likely to get someone knocking at the door about this because I've heard (only through he-says-she-says) others complaining about frequent visits. He said he couldn't answer this & he just goes where he's sent. He'll mark it as a refusal if I want & he was on his way.

I know there'll be the 'if you've got nothing to hide' brigade but how I see it is I've told them I don't need a licence & that's the end of it (as far as I'm concerned). I'll get back in touch if/when I need one in future.

So do you get something like quarterly knocks at the door to come & check on you because this will get annoying. 

What time of the day was this?
Morning, afternoon or evening?

Cornucopia

The numbers are pretty stark.  

- There are 165 TV Licensing field staff.   They get around, but will be doing well if they each manage 40 addresses per day.

- Depending on the methodology, there could be 3-4 million unlicensed households and unknown number of businesses.  

At a 20% access rate, TVL's capacity for meaningful visits would be around 290,000 per year.   So a typical unlicensed household might come face to face with a TVL salesperson every 10 years or so.   In practice, where you live plays a big part in that, with TVL favouring more densely populated areas for obvious reasons.  

B0bbyEwing

JohnSwift10 said:

B0bbyEwing said:

So I cancelled my TV licence a few months ago which is something I should've done years ago really but hey ho. 
Tonight I had my first "I've come to check you're not using....." knock at the door.

In fairness to the chap he was polite enough, told me pretty much straight away I can refuse it (which I did) & left it at that. I did ask him how often I'm likely to get someone knocking at the door about this because I've heard (only through he-says-she-says) others complaining about frequent visits. He said he couldn't answer this & he just goes where he's sent. He'll mark it as a refusal if I want & he was on his way.

I know there'll be the 'if you've got nothing to hide' brigade but how I see it is I've told them I don't need a licence & that's the end of it (as far as I'm concerned). I'll get back in touch if/when I need one in future.

So do you get something like quarterly knocks at the door to come & check on you because this will get annoying. 

What time of the day was this?
Morning, afternoon or evening?

6pm

Cornucopia said:

The numbers are pretty stark.  

- There are 165 TV Licensing field staff.   They get around, but will be doing well if they each manage 40 addresses per day.

- Depending on the methodology, there could be 3-4 million unlicensed households and unknown number of businesses.  

At a 20% access rate, TVL's capacity for meaningful visits would be around 290,000 per year.   So a typical unlicensed household might come face to face with a TVL salesperson every 10 years or so.   In practice, where you live plays a big part in that, with TVL favouring more densely populated areas for obvious reasons.  

Depending on ones definition of "densely populated" I'd argue that we're not.

For example, I don't live in Manchester / Birmingham / London / Glasgow / Edinburgh etc but I also don't live in a little village with the population of 10 people.