MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I haven't had a TV for several years, and informed the TLA when I got rid of it. They write from time to time to check whether you are watching a TV illegally yet or not. I've always replied and I think I've let someone in my flat to check whether I have one.
They started writing to me again a couple of months ago and I decided I was fed up of answering them and fed up of their tone, that makes the assumption that I must be watching TV illegally. So I haven't answered them this time and after about 5 letters they said they were going to send their "enforcement officers" round. They visited today, but I was out on my bike - they left a letter entitled "We said we'd call..."
My plan is to not let them in as they have no right to access my flat without a warrant - but I'm wondering if anyone has experience of not playing their game and the outcome?
Thanks!
If you don't have a tv then let them waste their time trying to prove you do. I did for years.,
yes not worth the hassle
when it asked why you dont have a televison licence - after three years i wrote
"take a wild effing guess"
they wrote back thanking me for my reply and asking for more details!!
I just said stop sending me letters and call round because i am sick of this. They did stop writing and called.
Suspect they have the right to check but just reply and ask them to stop harrasing you as you dont have a tv and infrom them you wont write again.
I went through something similar. They gave up in the end. I also received a few "we said we'd call" hand written notes... delivered by my post lady! Its just another scare tactic to get evaders to buy a licence. I also took exception to their lightly veiled threats, general tone and accusations of law breaking, despite doing nothing wrong. As there are millions of non payers, expect a genuine visit in a good few years, then simply say nothing and shut the door. There is loads on line about their powers (or should i say lack of them) if you search....
think i've had about 15 letters since moving into this flat 2 years ago..
12 years of not paying, just ignore them and their useless threats
There are horror stories of little old ladies who don't have TVs buying licenses just to keep the TLA bullies away.
Mate at work doesn't watch live TV but downloads all he needs instead. He's had countless threats which all end up in the bin. They are all addressed to 'the legal occupier' because he's kept his name off the electoral roll.
Unless they turn up with a warrant issued by a court, he has no intention of letting them in.
They don't have any authority whatsoever (and "detection vans" are a myth). Stick the letters in the big round file and if they turn up on your doorstep without a warrant tell them you'll be persueing them for trespass.
Never had a problem personally, but then, I've never not had a TV licence.
The great thing is that they can't get a warrant without proof of you owning a TV, and they need the warrant to get the proof!!
They came snooping round my place some years ago when I had no TV. - then they ask to come in and look!
I told them to go away and they didn't return.
(and "detection vans" are a myth)
Really?
So if you have a TV, and watch it all the time without a license, there is nothing they can do about it? Assuming you don't let them into your house voluntarily.
a short informational video for you.....
I'm happy to pay mine, the BBC is worth every penny IMO.
I'm with loddrik
i'd happily never watch BBC ever again (but it appears we Dont have the choice) ... i vote with me feet 😉
Really?So if you have a TV, and watch it all the time without a license, there is nothing they can do about it? Assuming you don't let them into your house voluntarily.
Correct. Unless they get a warrant, which is highly unlikely.
It's all done by address, basically. I believe (though don't know first-hand) that when you buy a TV you get 'reported' to the licensing authority so they can cross-reference your address.
... of course, if they look through your window and see a TV sitting there, you might be on shakier ground. (-:
And yeah. Personally I think it's worth paying for, I think Auntie Beeb is an institution worth supporting. I listen to radio 1, 2 and 4 regularly, as well as enjoying a lot of their home-grown TV output.
With the growth of alternative technologies letting you watch TV without a TV I do wonder how much longer the "unique way the BBC is funded" will be able to sustain itself. If the arse drops out it though, I think that will be a pity.
So.. does BBC iPlayer log IP addresses? It should 🙂
do pay now as i do have one now. Agree it is a great institute and preferable to a Fox news /berlusconni type scenario
Does an amazing cross section of programmes from Top Gear to good stuff 😉
Seems unlikely, as you don't need a licence for iPlayer.
And yeah. Personally I think it's worth paying for, I think Auntie Beeb is an institution worth supporting. I listen to radio 1, 2 and 4 regularly, as well as enjoying a lot of their home-grown TV output.
+1. I watch the BBC channels, listen to BBC radio and use the BBC News website.
I quite like having an internationally respected broadcaster producing stuff for my consumption and I think the licence fee is pretty reasonable. Try comparing it to Sky!
all you need to know here
I have POLICY of NOT reading ANYTHING which has RANDOM words in capital LETTERS for no apparent REASON. It's a good rule of thumb that's served me well in the past for avoiding lunatics and the religious.
Have you had a look at the rest of the site? It's fantastic, I've not seen so many barmpots in one place for quite some time.
It's all done by address, basically. I believe (though don't know first-hand) that when you buy a TV you get 'reported' to the licensing authority so they can cross-reference your address.
Aye - I had Amazon deliver a DVD/HD recorder to work. I now get letters (at work) saying I don't have a TV license... 🙄
They kept promising me visits, and the letters got more and more threatening (and red) but after ignoring them they seemed to go back to the first letter.
I did get a TV license man to the front door, he asked if I had a TV I said no. He asked if he could come in and check and was very put out when I told him no.
Shortly after I got another 'initial' letter, no reference to the fact I'd had a visit. As soon as the option to fill in online to state you didn't have a TV I did that. I received a letter stating I wouldn't receive any more correspondence for, I think 2 years, and then the next day I got another threatening letter 🙂
It's all run by Crapita, I don't think they have a clue what they're doing, but I hate the wording of the letters and the presumption of guilt.
I don't watch TV it promotes delusionment and a lack of touch with reality.
As for licensing, I just laugh about the letters and if they come to my door, I laugh even harder.
They assume everyone watches it, because most people have been brain washed since they where kids into believing that false hood is truth and vice versa, don't pretend you have a choice to watch it or not, you are addicted to it!
I love telly. So do my kids. 🙂
I don't watch TV it promotes delusionment and a lack of touch with reality.
So true not like being on a forum typing any old rubbish under a persona.
[i]They assume everyone watches it, because most people have been brain washed[/i]
really? brain washed? But not you though, right?
I went for about 5 years without a TV, until my mum gave me a virtually new one last year, it had sparkly bits on it and dozens of channels, so I caved in and bought a licence.
Anyway, In my case, I got the reminders, then they got more and more threatening and red. At one point I did phone them, but the letters continued, so I never replied to them again.
I did get a visit, the guy was sat outside my house, in a car. He came in, looked around, went away and the letters stopped for about 2 years.
Then it all started again, with regular letters to 'the occupier', threatening all sorts of things, I was/am on the electoral roll BTW. I ignored them all.
They are very annoying, though I did read somewhere (urban myth???) that if you respond to them formally & keep a record (recorded post) you could have them prosecuted under anti-'harassment' laws.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/40/contents
The amount of times I've said get rid and mrshora has basically rioted
It's all run by Crapita, I don't think they have a clue what they're doing
I didn't know that, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. I've had a few dealings with Capita and I'd struggle to find something favourable to say about them.
You need a license for any device *capable* of receiving a *live* TV broadcast.
Although it funds the BBC, the license isn't required to watch BBC channels (ie you can't de-tune BBC channels and say you dont need a liscence)
Interestingly the authorities have stated that they wont (can't) be chasing people watching live broadcasts through I player.
The BBC is a good service. People from other countries always say they wish they had something as good.
Do you still have to pay a license if you buy a telly to only watch dvd/bluray/games on? If they "catch" you with the tv how can you prove you don't actually use it to watch tv channels on?
Interesting to read everyone's experiences, thank you. It's frustrating that you can't just tell them once and for all and then be left alone - and this spate of letters addressed to "the occupier" does feel a bit like harassment. I'm also on the electoral roll - so if they could be bothered they could actually find out that I'm still living at the same address, and I'd hope they would have a record of previous correspondence.
The TV good/bad debate is a different subject.... I'm not passing judgement, TVs just not for me at the moment. That includes iplayer which I also never use. I do meet people though who say they would love to get rid of their TV, but can't imagine life without it, which I thinks a bit of a shame. Planning to get one to watch the Olympics though next year - if I can get a licence for 2 weeks!
Do you still have to pay a license if you buy a telly to only watch dvd/bluray/games on? If they "catch" you with the tv how can you prove you don't actually use it to watch tv channels on?
As thekingisdead said, you need a licence if you've got equipment capable of receiving broadcast telly. Taking a glue gun to the RF input on your TV / video etc would probably be sufficient.
As thekingisdead said, you need a licence if you've got equipment capable of receiving broadcast telly. Taking a glue gun to the RF input on your TV / video etc would probably be sufficient.
Wrong, you only need a TV license if you're using equipment to receive TV signals.
The very fact that it /can/ is irrelevant.
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ15/
If you really want to confuse them change the name of your house.
It took 18 months and three visits for them to register the fact that as I had a TV licence in the new name of the house they were on very dodgy ground trying to prosecute me for not having a licence in the old name of the house.
We live on an old farm so once found a chap on my property scouting round to find which building was the "old" address. As I escorted him from the premises I explained that the building he had been looking at was indeed occupied intermittently but neither the swallows who nest there each summer nor the dog who used the run there when the rest of us were out were that into TV and more to the point I didn't fancy his chances of getting them to pay.
Wrong, you only need a TV license if you're using equipment to receive TV signals.
The very fact that it /can/ is irrelevant.
Hm, that's interesting. Has it changed recently, or have I been wrong for years? I could've sworn that used to be the case.
Jesus. That Young Ones clip.
The TV licence investigator drinks in my local. Someone said he used to be on telly but I never really took much notice.
"Television Licensing Authority" this is an outfit the governmeent should scrap. Defo vote winner.
****ing licence for a TV wtf. Make some real money and bring back the dog license at say £1000 per dog ;-).
he's kept his name off the electoral roll.
how's he managed that then?
Interestingly the authorities have stated that they wont (can't) be chasing people watching live broadcasts through I player.
Are you sure this is the case? - I thought that watching live tv on-line was illegal without a license
It never ever been the case that you need a licence for equipment "capable" of receiving "live" tv. The moment that you do receive a "live" broadcast then you need a licence. "live" means received at the same moment that its broadcast (give or take a few milliseconds transmission delay), Iplayer is a delayed transmission which is why you don't need a licence.
You also don't need a licence if you only use your TV to watch DVD's or play computer games on.
It's equipment "installed or used" for the purpose of receiving broadcasts. Lose the arial.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/692/regulation/9/made
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/search?q=install
Has it changed recently, or have I been wrong for years?
You've been wrong for years, it's a common misconception though.
"live" means received at the same moment that its broadcast (give or take a few milliseconds transmission delay), Iplayer is a delayed transmission which is why you don't need a licence.
Rockhopper - interesting, is there anywhere you can direct me to that states this?
From The Communications Regulations Act:
[i]In this regulation, any reference to receiving a television programme service includes a reference to receiving by any means any programme included in that service, [b]where that programme is received at the same time (or [u]virtually the same time[/u])[/b] as it is received by members of the public by virtue of its being broadcast or distributed as part of that service.[/i]
I would have thought that would cover "live" broadcasts on the iplayer?
I must admit that I didn't realise you could watch live TV on Iplayer - if you do you need a licence. If you watch their stored content then you don't.
he's kept his name off the electoral roll.how's he managed that then?
Easy, he's only registered for Council Tax as you have to do. That doesn't mean you have to automatically register to vote. Some official paid him a visit and started talking about a 1000 quid fine until it was pointed out that it was for false information (not the same as no information)
"It is a criminal offence not to complete and return the annual registration form, or to provide inaccurate or false information; liable to a fine up to £1,000."
http://www.stratford.gov.uk/council/council-404.cfm
Oh well, he's the sort who wouldn't care anyway. They'd have to find out who he is first.
Never minded paying the licence fee. The BBC provides me with a lot of services that I use. iplayer, radio and their web site. Much better without adverts every 10-15 mins.
What I do object to is the threatening tone in the letters. They must waste an absolute fortune on paper alone. Mountains of the bloody stuff.
Make some real money and bring back the dog license
Would the licence be cheaper if you got a black and white dog?
Every year student halls here get a letter for EVERY bedroom warning they don't have a licence. That is several thousand letters wasting paper and money and I wonder how many other Universities get the same. I used to write "return to sender" on all of the 240 we used to get in halls and send them all back. It was worth the effort (was getting paid for being on reception).
I lived without a TV for a couple of years and kept getting the "you are officially cautioned...bla bla bla". In the end I called them and told them if they didn't stop sending me letters and accusing me of having a TV I would take them to court for harassment.
Last year I gave my TV to my GF and called them to cancel my licence - I instantly got questions of "do you have a laptop?" "a desktop PC?"....I told the guy I was cancelling my licence and that was the end of it and what other things I own is no business of him or the TV licensing people. They now assume that because you have a laptop you have internet and watch live TV. What happened to being innocent until proven guilty? For the record I also had no internet connection so my laptop was purely for work.
IIRC there is a rule saying that if you are only away from home for a short time (ie a term) then you are covered under your home license, which means that they are wasting their time mailing Uni halls, in general.
I think it is pretty shocking that the onus is on you to prove you are innocent. I thought we lived in a democracy.
Good luck. 🙂
I think it is pretty shocking that the onus is on you to prove you are innocent. I thought we lived in a democracy.
Those two things are not linked at all!
Sorry I forgot to point out that the letters were sent in the summer and if the students who lived there the previous academic year had registered on the electoral role it was addressed to them personally - or if they had got a licence while they were there. If not it was just addressed to the bedroom.
If your room in halls has a lock you need your own licence. In a student house you just need a shared one for the house (provided there are no locks on doors).
But the point was they were sending it to halls were students only live in their 1st year from October to June in the summer around August accusing the person living in that room of not having licence but having a TV. The rooms were all unoccupied and no matter how many times we contacted them about it they still sent out letters the following year. Complete idiocy.
I used to sub contract to BT. They kept the 'TV detection vans' in the car parks of the bigger exchanges in Manchester. It was basically an empty van with an aerial on the roof. Nice trick though. I'll happily pay the license fee myself, I think the BBC provides a superb service.
That's a funny site.
Some dodgy reasoning on that site though
The highlighted paragraph says that there are two dedicated members of staff working on each of the vehicles every week, completing the vans in a six month period. The conclusion to be drawn is that there are 26* vans.
Nothing there says that they only have 2 members of staff in total - just that 2 members of staff work on each van. Hence the 26 van conclusion is flawed. Lots more examples of similar levels of reasoning (eg the legal evidence thing - they don't use the evidence from the vans to prosecute, simply to advance the legal process in other ways, hence the evidence laws are different).
I have no evidence whether or not they have working detector vans, but it would surprise me if they didn't use such technology, given it's very straightforward and could be very useful in determining whether somebody really does have a TV - I note a distinct lack of evidence from those who use a TV but have no licence on whether a detector van was involved.
An amusing anecdote - many years ago I was involved with doing radio trials in Scotland which involved driving round in a white Tranny with a great big retracting antenna in the middle of the roof. One morning after staying the night at a pub in the middle of nowhere on Skye the landlord asked if we were a TV detector van, and commented that lots of locals were busy buying licenses 🙂
However many vans they have is irrelevant, what they don't have any of is "detector" vans. They might have plenty of vans full of pushy men in important-looking suits (though I've never seen any of those myself either).
Our chimney had a bit of an incident and we lost both sat and ariel. Cancelled our license until it was up and running again (about 6 months). They were fine about it but did warn that they might visit as 80% of those who claim that they don't need one in actual fact do. Don't have a problem with it. It took as a couple of months to get round to cancel it. I would pay it for the radio alone if that was the rule - Radio 4 Comedy rocks!
😯
Certainly the science of detecting a TV is possible, in fact tracing local oscillator radiation from a Superhet receiver on known frequencies was a proven method of spy detection.
However whilst that may have been effective in 1950 with one or two televisions in a street, the chances of being able to track down a single television on a street with 50 of them on at any time causing interference seems somewhat far fetched...
Certainly the science of detecting a TV is possible, in fact tracing local oscillator radiation from a Superhet receiver on known frequencies was a proven method of spy detection.
Even for a modern TV with say digital freeview, or sky/cable?
Digital TV is, and always will be, transmitted in analogue.
The principles used in decoding the incoming signal are always the same.
Even Sky and cable? Sky is much higher frequency tho is it not? Will that not travel as far?
Yep.
With analogue TV you use a simple analogue decoder to recover an analogue signal. In the old days the signal was then amplified and fed straight into the CRT display.
With digital TV you use a much more sophisticated analogue decoder to recover a digital signal.
Whether its sat, terrestrial or cable, the incoming signal is converted into a common (analogue) frequency (used to be around 39Mhz) It was that frequency that the detector vans used for monitoring. Actually not strictly true, but I dont want to go into Local Oscillator principles here 😕
Savvy license dodgers could change that frequency, but it needed sophisticated test gear to do properly.
Yes I understand how receiving the TV works. What I don't understand is the secondary radiation to which Z11 refers.
We had a visit from the Licence inspector man once. We hadn't had a licence for almost a year because the person in our student house who we'd given the licence money to (we later found out) had spent it on beer instead and had obviously hidden every TV licence letter that must have arrived.
The inspector could see the TV from the front door and wrote on his form "TV on and watching BBC1"
All he said was "best get a licence lads". We got a licence the next day and we never heard from them again.
Yes I understand how receiving the TV works. What I don't understand is the secondary radiation to which Z11 refers
The spy stories I'd heard where related to reading screens remotely, and this depended on an electron gun scanning the screen.. so LCD/plasma wouldn't work.
Don't know if modern TV's even use a superhet or replace it in software now?
I have simply wrapped my house in bacofoil
When they come round, just cover yourself in chicken blood, and answer the door wearing only a balaclava and a pair of wellington boots.
They won't come back again....
Don't know if modern TV's even use a superhet or replace it in software now?
Signal is too fast and low level to do in software.
One day perhaps.