Gas Safe Register - No More DIY ?

..and many of the Council tax collections...and the bailiff companies that they send around at the drop of a hat and run up the bills like crazy. A £100 debt can run to many, many 1000s.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel
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By the time it get to court, they have to visit your address via a court order. You do not need to speak to TV licence people or let them in your home. They have no powers worth talking of.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

I assume you also do not have a TV...

If I were in that position (I'm not as I have both a TV and a licence) and had time I would be almost tempted to let them take it to court and waste their time and money in doing so.

Neil

Reply to
Neil Williams

Neil Williams coughed up some electrons that declared:

I'm in that position with the house I'm fixing. After the last, unacceptably abusive letter from them, I sent an extremely abusive letter back inviting them to either **** off or take me to court. I made many disparaging remarks about Capita and their ability to do anything right.

They came back with a surprisingly grovelling (but probably form) letter and promised not to bug me for a while...

So far they haven't. Whilst childish, it made me feel good, so sod 'em.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:20:15 +0100 someone who may be Tim S wrote this:-

Well done.

The BBC do like to libel people by putting things like, "ACTION REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY", on the outside of their threats. The best response to these threats I have seen recently is at and is worth repeating here:

=====================================================================

Paul Willars, Regional Manager, East Anglia Enforcement Team, TV Licensing, Bristol BS98 1TL

Dear Mr. Willars Thank you for your insolent communication of 'November 2008'.

Just who the Hell do you think you are to "require immediate action"? As far as I am aware, having a TV licence is not a condition of residence in the UK. Permit me to remind you, that as a mere subcontracting profit-making organisation, you are in no way empowered to make up your own laws.

You state in the first paragraph of your litter that "as yet we have received no answer to previous communications from you."

Would you run that past me again, please? While it's true that I've only received one answer from you in reply to previous communications from me over the last five years, you are hardly likely to have received any answers to communications from me: that's not how letters work, you know.

Passing over that illiteracy, with all due respect, I call you a liar.

Some five years ago you sent a perfectly reasonable letter pointing out that there was no television licence for my address, and as the previous occupier did have a television while she lived here, I informed you that I had just moved in, that I did not have a television, and that I had no intention of acquiring one, but if I did, I would buy a licence.

Is that one of the replies you haven't received? If it is, I'd like to know how it is that you replied to it and said that you would not be writing to me again for a period, and then only to ascertain whether the circumstances had changed.

Since then, I have received a constant barrage of ever shriller demands, and where a few of these enclosed s.a.e. I replied to them, informing you that there was no television at this address, and that I had no intention of getting one. Is this your idea of not having received any communications from me?

Then the letters demanding money with menaces began to arrive. At my own expense I replied, warning you that a repeat of your importuning and threatening letters would incur a secretarial charge for any reply I should make. I did this as a service to all those whom you might intimidate into buying a licence unnecessarily, and to this end I am sending copies of the current impudent demand, and of this letter, to my solicitor, my MP, to the relevant Government Minister and to Private Eye.

I give you notice that from the day this recorded delivery letter is delivered, replying "immediately" in response to your demands will incur a premium of 50% above my usual secretarial rate of £35/hr plus postage and materials, minimum charge one hour.

Since the last time I wrote to you, the Postcode Database has been corrected and my address is included, and presumably your IT software pounced on a 'new' address and saw there was no TV licence for that 'new' address. It is this mitigating circumstance on this occasion which prompted me not to make the charge of which I informed you in my letter of 5th March 2008. However, had your software been properly written in the first place, it would have flagged-up the fact that there was no television receiving apparatus at the 'new' address - from which address, I repeat, I have been writing to you for the last five years - always assuming, of course, that you had risen above your usual level of incompetence and noted the fact.

I can take care of myself, and I'm not afraid of your blustering and posturing, but there must be thousands of old, simple or timid folk whom you are hounding and who will have no-one to turn to, and many of them will be intimidated into buying a licence they do not need. I would call it 'demanding money with menaces'.

Apart from your apology, I don't wish to hear from you again. Let me reiterate: in the unlikely event of my wishing to use a television capable of receiving broadcast signals, I shall get a licence. In the meantime, I take every letter you send me as an insult, not only to my honesty, but to my taste and intelligence.

As a mark of my confidence in your organisation, I hereby withdraw your presumed right of entry to my property, and inform you that any such incursion will be trespass.

You should remain, sir, my humble and obedient servant

=====================================================================

Reply to
David Hansen

How timely...

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Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

David Hansen coughed up some electrons that declared:

Nicely done! It has the same tone as mine, but with more English and less Anglo Saxon.

Reply to
Tim S

Should've guessed it'd be a Zetnut!

Thanks for posting it.

Reply to
PeterC

On 31 Mar 2009 14:36:01 GMT someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) wrote this:-

little old ladies the BBC also pick on solicitors

and dead soldiers .

I support much of what the BBC does, but the way they flood non-customers with marketing materials is a good way of getting up people's noses. When I ceased to be a customer of a gas supplier they sent me a letter thanking me for my custom. They have not bombarded me with spam asking me to take up their offer again.

Reply to
David Hansen

.

Until I read that BBC article, I had assumed that the licence fee collection process was nothing to do with the BBC itself, but contracted out by the government.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

On 31 Mar 2009 15:50:00 GMT someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) wrote this:-

That is exactly what they want people to believe. If the BBC was to put their logo on their demands with menaces then they would look like the mocked-up ones a little over half way down

(scroll down to "So, there we have it; the TVL is the BBC, and the BBC is TVL. This is why this website always refers to "TVL/BBC", since the two are the same.

"The reason for this masquerade is that the BBC does not want to be identified with TV licensing activity; otherwise, its letters and materials might look something like this:")

The main page records the BBC's threatening words and behaviour towards one person who has not taken up the subscription the BBC offer.

Reply to
David Hansen

.

I think the point that annoys non TV users is that the statement

"With a database of nearly 30 million addresses, we ask people to co-operate with us when we make inquiries and if a licence is not required, we would encourage them to inform us and allow us to update our records accordingly. The phone number for TV Licensing appears at least once in every letter, in bold type, and usually appears several times and on both sides."

How do you co-operate with a company that will not give a SAE or a freephone telephone number but still wants to look inside your house?

The TVLA will (unless you withdraw their implied right of access) want to check your house to prove that you have no TV when you write to them to inform them that you do not use a TV.

I have no shotgun licence. The police do not call around to look for shotguns or write to me asking if I own a shotgun.

I have no rod licence. The Enviromental Agency do not write to me to ask if I have a fishing rod or if go fishing.

My Grandad no longer has a driving licence. The DVLA do not write to him asking if he still owns or drives a car (he still owns a car) with such unpleasant letters.

If co-operation for the TVLA means a Nazi search on your house then the TVLA can get stuffed.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

section that one!

Reply to
John Rumm

You'd also think they would have a more recent stock library shot of a detector van rather than a 13 year old P reg. Come to think of it, maybe they don't make detector vans anymore...?

Dave

Reply to
Dave Starling

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