TV Licence article Discussion

Nick_C

RandomQ wrote: »

They are not getting it for nothing, like you by the time they are 75 they will have contributed to society in one way or another, this particular bunch went to war, were bombed out of their homes, were evacuated and separated from their siblings, then went through an austerity you cannot imagine with the rebuild decade after the war.

My sister will be 75 next year. She will get a free TV licence. She can afford to pay for a TV licence now, she will be able to afford to pay for it once she is 75.

She didn't go to war. She wasn't bombed out of her home. She wasn't evacuated.

She hasn't worked or made a financial contribution to the UK for the last 40 years. Why should my license fee subsidise hers?

And I can imagine the austerity that my mother went through after the war. I learned about it first hand as a child.

Some pensioners are well off but that does not lessen their contribution and if they are well off they probably earned it by running their own company, paying into a good pension or putting up with poor wages (which was the way public sector workers were remunerated in those days).

Many pensioners are well off. All the ones I know are. It is irrelevant why they are all off. It is unfair that a working person is much worse off than a pensioner with the same gross income.

Many pensioners have to go to work

Very few pensioners have to go to work. We have a very generous Pension Credit scheme that gives people of pension age twice as much money as other unemployed benefit claimants.

Many pensioners choose to go to work, for various reasons.

You work all your life to pay into a system...

No one works all their lives. Many work for less than half their lives. The rest of the time, they may be supported by taxpayers. That's a big part of the problem with our out of control welfare budget.

The sad fact is that elderly people would really struggle to understand that they can avail themselves of alternatives to Live TV, they would also struggle to understand when a programme was live or catch up..

Many people of all ages struggle to understand these things.

[Deleted User]

Nick_C wrote: »

Why should my license fee subsidise hers?

If you wen't LLF, you wouldn't be subsidising it.

Cornucopia

I understand that Lord Hall's justification for accepting responsibility for the Over-75 concession is that most arts ventures cover their own costs in providing their concessionary tickets/services. Presumably this is based on the costs of providing those extra services being marginal - and then they went and expressed the costs of the concession as a misleading £150.50 x number of licences when it is nothing of the sort.

I've no reason to dispute Lord Hall's comments (though I don't know if they are actually true or not). I think that the BBC was somewhat blinkered, though, in their desire to close the "iPlayer loophole". I think that this was both a strategic error (closing BBC TV totally to those without Licences) and also a misjudgement of the likely effect. They somewhat vainly assumed that Legally Licence-Free households faced with the prospect of losing BBC TV would buy a Licence, whereas many simply went elsewhere. A cannier move would have been to introduce a cut-rate iPlayer Licence (perhaps with limited hours per month) as a way to capitalise on the effect of the change.

The fact that the BBC has been very quiet about the effect of the change would seem to support the argument above.

EachPenny

I suppose if your business model is to send aggressive and demanding correspondence to ex-customers and non-customers, it makes it really easy for scammers to pretend to be you and send aggressive and demanding emails to try and obtain information which will result in people getting scammed. :whistle:

Still, at least you can use some of the money you've obtained through that aggressive and demanding marketing technique to publicise the fact people are falling victim to this scam:-
TV licence email scam: More than 5,000 complaints in three months
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46745298

Cornucopia

EachPenny wrote: »

I suppose if your business model is to send aggressive and demanding correspondence to ex-customers and non-customers, it makes it really easy for scammers to pretend to be you and send aggressive and demanding emails to try and obtain information which will result in people getting scammed.

I totally agree. What's the difference between one non-official (or at least non-statutory) missive and the next?

[Deleted User]

EachPenny wrote: »

it makes it really easy for scammers to pretend to be you and send aggressive and demanding emails to try and obtain information which will result in people getting scammed. :whistle:

You mean scammed a second time?

Nick_C

I'm fed up with having to pay the BBC £150 a year in order to watch live TV.

My present licence expires on 31/7. If I cancel my license from 31/1, will I get a 50% refund?

The form to claim a refund asks for proof that I no longer need a license. How do I prove that I not longer want to watch live TV?

EachPenny

Nick_C wrote: »

I'm fed up with having to pay the BBC £150 a year in order to watch live TV.

My present licence expires on 31/7. If I cancel my license from 31/1, will I get a 50% refund?

If you've paid in full for the licence then yes, you should get 6 months back:-
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ14

Be careful about the date on which you notify them you want to cancel. They only refund complete months, but (I believe) apply the cancellation when you notify them, not on the last day of the month. (someone will correct me if I'm wrong on that - but it was how they operated when they did refunds in 3 month blocks).

Therefore you can (should?) wait until later in the month so you don't miss out on what you've already paid for.

Nick_C wrote: »

The form to claim a refund asks for proof that I no longer need a license. How do I prove that I not longer want to watch live TV?

Just tell them.

Then sit back and await countless [STRIKE]threats[/STRIKE] letters telling you that you are breaking the law by not having a licence. Read up the very useful advice given on this thread about dealing with TV Licencing.

For normal law-abiding people it goes against the grain to ignore the 'authorities'... but in this case it seems to be the only way.

kinger101

Nick_C wrote: »

How do I prove that I not longer want to watch live TV?

A death certificate?

I'm !!!!ed off with the BBC too. I don't understand why they are using my license fee to pay for Dr Who posters on billboards. Given the license fee is essentially a tax.

Cornucopia

Nick_C wrote: »

I'm fed up with having to pay the BBC £150 a year in order to watch live TV.

My present licence expires on 31/7. If I cancel my license from 31/1, will I get a 50% refund?

Yes, you'll get a refund of all fully unused months of credit. I'd give them a couple of extra days notice, at least, to allow for any maths shenanigans they might employ to have another month's money off you.

The form to claim a refund asks for proof that I no longer need a license. How do I prove that I not longer want to watch live TV?

If that's what it says, that's a bit naughty.

They request proof of those things that can conceivably be proven (like moving to an address that already has a Licence). It's not possible to prove that you won't be using Live TV reception in the future and therefore you should not be asked to do so.

Just tell them that you won't be watching TV or using iPlayer. I would suggest doing this by phone, as you'll be able to carry out the entire cancellation in one go. If you start the process using the online form, it's likely to go back and forth several times before they get the message.