TV Licence article Discussion

Ego_Shredder

Just got yet another letter, this time showing a status of a visit being "temporarily on hold". There was an almost sympathetic tone to one paragraph saying, "we know how difficult it is to pay bills at the moment".


So there is now a futher 10 days grace before an investigation starts, which apparently had already done so I think, although would need to clarify this by reading previous letters. They also supplied a handy portion of a calendar, to help me visualise my impending doom.


Apparently I am not "correctly licensed" even though they do not know my name, or if I even own or watch a TV or their content.

Ego_Shredder

robatwork wrote: »

But we knew in the 70s and 80s their vans had no detection technology. Would love to have been shown around the back of one -"yes here is where we plug our ciggie lighter in, that's the most advanced technology we have"

I have one particular friend who back in 1994, told me he had been visited and later fined for watching his colour TV with a B/W license. Not sure on what evidence they caught and fined him on, but I think he paid up. At that time he was not well off and out of work in an unfurnished terrace house, but a couple of years later he was in a highly paid computer job, and these days sits next to the CEO of Kantar and is very well off indeed.

RandomQ

Cornucopia wrote: »

When I search for "buy a TV licence", I don't see any references to TVLicencePlus on the first page at all.

However, when I search for "buy a TV license", they are there as the #2 entry in the ads area at the top.

Sometimes it pays to get your spelling right.

If you want to F with these bar stewards simply click on their ads as often as possible so that it costs them money (they pay per click).

Clear your cookies and change your ad ID to make it not count as one click if you click many times, or use different browsers.

They will have a daily budget, if enough people click on these ads they will stop showing when the budget is reached.

The other thing you can do to prevent their ads appearing so prominently is to leave the site it takes you to within 10 seconds, Google tracks the relevance of ads, so if it takes you to a page that is not of interest it punishes the ad.

You can also do the same search again but click on anything but the ad, e.g. the official TV licencing site.

If enough people click on the ad the price of the search term will go up in the bidding and over time it will become more expensive, thus causing the fake TVL company money.

Ego_Shredder

Google Trends has a few interesting graphs....


iPlayer vs Netflix vs DVD vs Freeview - 2004 to present



https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=iPlayer,Netflix,DVD,Freeview

Cornucopia

robatwork wrote: »

But we knew in the 70s and 80s their vans had no detection technology. Would love to have been shown around the back of one -"yes here is where we plug our ciggie lighter in, that's the most advanced technology we have"

Someone should make a website showing the history of TV Licensing ruses down the ages.

I suspect the nature of the ruses could tell us a lot about the culture of the time when it was being used. So the detector vans have a somewhat "cold war" aspect to them, whereas the modern letters have a definite whiff of "big data".

Dibdab01

I appreciate the info you gave me and my Tolerance for these people is now 0.

They have repeatedly mislead and miss informed me over the phone and in Emails, stating that they have updated the information. But clearly have not done so. Latest Email said that I must ring them again to cancel Her licence which I've done previously and sent Cert they required to them. Receiving auto reply and further email with new ref no: etc.

I even asked them over the phone if they required written confirmation from God??
which unfortunately I am unable to obtain.

So I give up with them as there are far more important things in life to worry about.

RandomQ

bytor1971 wrote: »

Okay, thanks for that. Very much appreciated. I guess the golden rule is not to bother answering the door if they ever come round, I don't answer my door unless I'm expecting someone so that shouldn't be a problem.

I've also seen a few videos on YouTube where they try and do someone for obstruction for not cooperating which is quite worrying.

The simple answer is DO NOT ENGAGE

The video you refer to is for someone for whom they had a warrant, what is disturbing is that TVL have obtained warrants by telling lies to a Court. There is a video showing that on YouTube, it turns out they alleged they observed a live tv programme being watched and this was complete BS and proven to be wrong.

If you DO NOT ENGAGE they have nothing to grip on, they are trained to ask confusing questions, to twist what you do to make it sound against the law.

So just remember DO NOT ENGAGE, after a short wait they will go away.

We had a new one in our area (last one gave up years ago), he is ringing all videophones to get into the block so he can harass people on their internal door, we have some vulnerable people in block and have been asked not to let people in unless they are calling for our property. I saw him ring every property in the block trying to persuade them that he had a right to enter. I have thrown him out twice.

Remember DO NOT ENGAGE!

Then the following will not be necessary:

Do not answer door, do not answer questions, do not give details, be careful what you say, do not admit you have a TV, do not argue about live and not live, etc. It is NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS, if you do not watch LIVE TV or use IPLAYER you do not need to explain yourself.

Just DO NOT ENGAGE.

FreeBear

RandomQ wrote: »

It is NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS, if you do not watch LIVE TV or use IPLAYER you do not need to explain yourself.

Just DO NOT ENGAGE.

And if you really want to upset them, do what I did to one little oik.... Ask "You have photo ID ?.... Give". Shut the door on them, and if they are still there five/ten minutes later tell them "I have been unable to confirm your identity and have been instructed to destroy your ID card."

RandomQ

I do not know if this is new but is first time I have seen it

It uses one of those privacy abusing window envelopes

In the window it has a Yellow Triangle with exclamation mark and word CAUTION underneath it, a bit like a toxic warning.



On the envelope it says in RED

Advance warning of possible interruption

WTH does that mean?

Inside it says

No TV Licence? No watching live TV.

Expect the interruption of an enforcement visit

Enforcement of WHAT, who do these scum think they are a High Court Enforcement Officer?

They have no right to FORCE me to do anything!

The envelope also seems a gross invasion of privacy.

RandomQ

Cornucopia wrote: »

TV Licensing no longer have a legal power to collect data on TV sales from retailers. This was abolished in 2013.

They buy general name and address data from commercial agencies, so it is possible that you will receive letters from them addressed to you by name at some point.

Even if they begin communicating to you by name, this has no bearing on their "investigation", because having a name for your address is of no use to them without some form of accompanying evidence of evasion. That can only be obtained by talking to you. If you never talk to them, and never let them in, they cannot obtain that evidence. They do not and cannot issue summonses based purely on "paper trail" evidence.

I pride myself on not being on almost any database, I am not on voters role, do not obtain credit or use any organisation that does Credit Searches including so called "soft checks". I am opted out of all NHS sharing.

Yet these scum got a variation of my name (misspelt), the only other use of that mistake that I have seen is from a shareholder list that just happens to be run by Capita.

Captita runs a huge number of databases and a suitable IT techie can access the backend of these databases to export to a master DB, strictly for internal use / verification you understand. I do not have evidence of this but it not an obvious or common mistake that they made.