On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 19:27:24 GMT, raden strung together this:
Well, I can tell you that I have never had a TV licensing letter in my life, until I bought a Hauppauge MVP online and since then I've been bombarded with letters. There was a thread on uk.tech.digital-tv about this and I'm not the only one. Obviously they do, and don't, depending on something or other, probably some random disorganisation.
The message from Lurch contains these words:
I think you are both right.
Suppliers have had to report purchasers for yonks. Back in 1977 when I was working in Walsall we bought a TV as a retirement present for someone who had not previously had a TV. Unfortunately the person who actually made the purchase gave the future recipients name to the store and she turned up at work a few days later totally mystified as why she had received an instruction to buy a TV licence immediately. Frantic attempts to persuade the issuing office to hold off for the few weeks till Lil actually retired where not entirely successful but ISTR that we did manage to keep the gift a secret until presentation.
The following year when I moved to an obscure address in Yorkshire I became involved in a saga that lasted off and on long enough for me to build up a collection of warning letters well into double figures.
I think the problem originated with my predecessor who had at least 2 postcodes in use. The correct address was of the form house, parish, town, etc (I said it was obscure) while the incorrect one had an additional line relating initially to an adjacent block of houses but somewhere along the line someone (presumably the TVites) managed to translate that into a nearby road with a different postcode placing my house in an imaginary position some half mile distant.
I can't remember the exact time scale but ISTR that the warning letters came at regular intervals, perhaps every 6 months or a year. The first was returned with a polite note pointing out their mistake, the second with a rude note and the 3rd liberally annotated with basic anglo-saxon. After that I didn't bother. The letters were kept but but I didn't bother until notes started appearing in my letterbox. More basic anglo-saxon followed and after (I think) 3 notes they stopped coming. Why I haven't a clue. Having found my house they couldn't have failed to see the aerial attached to the chimney and anyone dumb enough not to have noticed that house was off a totally different road would not have the nous to check their database to find that I had had a licence since
1978.But perhaps I underestimated them and they did eventually twig in which case they probably had the last laugh. Anyway it was about that time that I started to receive other mail with bogus address on. Seems the Royal Mail were making money out of an address database and a trusted source (their words) had told them that my address had been recorded wrongly. It took a considerable effort to persuade the dumbo at the Royal Mail that his trusted source had been even dumber than he was. There was even a slight bonus in this for me as my address is now recorded with a street name which the voters list denys me as the street is not actually in the same parish as my house.
I still occasionally get mail addressed to the bogus address. I don't however recall a TV reminder for the best part of 10 years. I must ask the postman sometime how it is I actually get these letters given that neither the road nor the postcode are correct.
A few years ago I bought a DVD player for my SIL at a local Tesco. They insisted that I *had* to fill in a form with my name and address on it. It was fairly obvious from the form that it was for TV license reporting. I attempted to explain to them that a DVD player was not able to receive TV transmission and hence there was absolutely no circumstance that it could need a license. They were having none of it... Since I needed the unit there and then, and it was past closing time in most shops, I gave them an address in then end, and they were happy. Just as well they did not read too carefully what I wrote. ;-)
The last time I bought a TV (in John Lewis) I refused point blank to fill out the TVLRO form, pointing out that I have a TV license. The droid on the till did not press the point.
SNIP
What a superior person you must be with your ability, and willingness, to behave in such a scornful manner to the workers of John Lewis.
I wonder if the person, or droid as you so cleverly described the creature who served you, is also such a 'sad' thing as to be spending their Christmas posting stupid, self-congratulatory messages on Usenet ?
closing
I bought a monitor from PC World a year ago and they insisted on an address - so I gave them the Labour Party in Millbank Towers SW1 ! The 'highly trained member of staff' on the till never batted an eyelid !!!
AWEM
But who are the real fools, the members of staff or the customers.....
-- Reply to group please.
begin .......nothing!
So which branch of Waitrose do you work for then?
When I bought a DVD player in ASDA a while ago the customer services person asked for my details - I explained that the information was only required for equipment that receives broadcasts, but gave her my address anyway. I expect management either doesn't quite understand the requirements, or has decided it's easier to deal with all TV- related appliances in the same way. Staff generally only do what management tells them to.
And you then have to pay to educate your own child as well as your taxes appear to be used to train a pack of knife wielding hyenas that should have been terminated at birth.
Don't blame the kids for how their sop called parents have raised them, the sooner parents are made to pick up the cost of *their* children the better IMO.
-- Reply to group please.
begin .......nothing!
Better than waiting for their mother to finish with the john, so you can get back on her computer.
Sounds fine to me - terminate the parents as well !!
A similar thing happened to me, just before Christmas. I wanted a second free view box and went to Asda's electrical shop to get another of the type that I had purchased late summer. This box had been sold to me without any mention of filling in a form, so I assumed that a second box would be the same formality to buy. On presenting it at the till, I was asked to fill in a form regarding the Wireless telegraphy Act 1947. Since I am licensed through that act for several reasons, I refused and the till operator refused to sell me the set top box. (I must go back and explain my reluctance to the till operator though, as he was only doing what his boss told him.) On paying a flying visit to Tesco's, they sold me one without a murmur.
Why, I can't imagine :-)
Dave
No argument there...
"Birds of a feather flock together"
Try to work that one out 'John Rumm'
'huge/Huge'
I would siggest that you do the same i.e. "Try to understand the significance of "Birds of a feather ..."
but jeesus
Yet another member of that brilliant cohort of self- deluded saddies.
Like I care what some drooling spineless retard like you, without the cojones to post as themselves, actually "thinks".
Go away.
In message , joedoe writes
And please don't top post
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.