Letters are still powerful - you, the writer, are in control of the process. 'They' want to force you to use their channels - an impenetrable web form, an eternity on a 'helpline', but you subvert the whole process with a letter to the company secretary at the registered head office. Thus have I always terminated phone, utility, broadband and other contracts with wolves and didacts. And civil law is behind you - our pre-EU law has survived intact, making any contract term requiring you to use the firm's contact channels unenforceable. Your letter - with no return channel volunteered except your address, requiring them to write back - can always quite legally give the required notice and request a final account. They hate it.
My letter to the TV Tax Stasi neatly avoided all the bullying of their chosen channels, all their weaselling for information for which they have no right to ask. I had completely forgotten that I paid annually by direct debit, and laughed when I got their airmailed letter telling me that they had refunded my account for several months. That must have hurt.
Twitter is exposing the repugnant methods the BBC Stasi are using to collect their tax - threats, lies. fake stamps, letters made to look like bailiffs' demands or even post office red 'not delivered' cards. And yesterday they confirmed that their thugs would be calling on the over 75s to remind them that they must scrape together the cash for the BBC's TV Tax or be criminally prosecuted. It's the sort of loutish bullying that Ann Robinson or Esther Rantzen used to expose on, erm, the BBC. And it won't take long for the first frail oldie to die of shock and fright.
So I can only recommend that those approaching the age of 75 - say all of you over 40 - write to the BBC (recorded delivery is good) querying the new arrangements and asking for more information. Don't bother with a phone number or email address. And remind them that you can't receive casual callers.
Oh. And you can't visit the BBC TV Tax office at Darlington DL98 1TL - it doesn't exist. Try it on google maps. I presume the post office intercept the mail and redirect it to the real, secret, address. The only thing of interest is a small probably 18th century building with oriel windows next to the Kebab and Grill. If there are any very wealthy BBC haters reading, I would love to restore this gorgeous little building and install a 'BBC TV Tax Advice Centre' on the ground floor staffed by local volunteers. Over 75 preferred.
Update
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The real home of the BBC TV Tax? - Crapita, India Mill, Darwen
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| Capita, Darwen - the origin of the BBC TV Tax thugmail |
23 comments:
"And civil law is behind you", I think you're confusing civil law for common law, which is indeed our pre-EU law code and still extant. Otherwise great article.
No, civil law. As opposed to criminal law. Specifically the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1974 - not common law, but statute. Sorry to be picky, but I am a construction contract law expert ;)
Yes I must use that system more often, an old friend of my Dad's used to get his solicitor out whenever he was involved in a motor accident, never allow the insurance company to deal with it, just make it pay out.
As for the TV tax, I was surprised when I discovered that such a thing is not just British, I had always assumed that it was. Instead it seems that the majority of countries have some kind of government oversight over who owns what kind of "receiving equipment". However we are the only idiots to believe in the existence of TV Detector vans.
I am a long way off of 75, but it does seem odd that the old age freebies seem to be being removed as I approach. Pensions take longer to get and have been rifled by Major and Braun, our two formerly most successful PM's.
Still nobody could predict the majesty and splendour of Mrs' May's legacy.
I got rid of my TV and stopped paying the TV Tax a few months ago. I told them it was as if their Brexit News coverage was being produced by Lord Haw Haw. Sadly I suspect that comment went over their heads.
I now have a rather nice 40" 4K monitor hooked up to the PS3 and Surround Sound System. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube and internet TV (such as 4OnDemand) are more than sufficient replacements. It's not worth over £150 per year just for iPlayer and nobody in my family misses it.
I can't help suspecting that imposing the TV tax on those over 75 is the equivalent of a punishment beating for daring to vote to restore this country' independence. After all, according to the BBC it WAS only the uneducated and elderly (the same thing in their world) who voted for Brexit.
It appears that Capita will be providing " outreach officers" to assist the over-75`s in seeing the errors of their ways should they choose not to pay for the license.
As a rebranding exercise this must take top prize; we now have an aggressive thug with the IQ of a turnip presented as something soft and cuddly with only the best interests of their " customers" at heart.
I am not sure how your action has saved your buyer 'harassment and intimidation from the TV Tax Stasi', it is the address not the person that needs a licence if they use a TV.
If your buyer doesn't need a TV licence it is a waste of time them making any contact with TVL. They might lay off for a while but then will go back to a bi-monthly cycle of letters. I find they have more variety in those than the programmes now that are all clones of each other, except for the ones are repeats anyway.
It would be nice to think that if the over 75s do pay that the BBC will make programmes for them, rather than foul-mouthed 35 year-olds going on 14.
Yes, I remember in the 1980s when I ceased owning a TV set, and received endless demands for explanations as to why I did not have a licence.
Little seems to have changed.
I just wrote, diagonally in felt marker across the complex form "No TV at this address" as I recall.
I always thought it weird. I didn't have a dog either, but no one seemed bothered about that.
It's just another British curiosity I suppose, but it's perhaps the nearest that the Establishment can get to making TV-watching compulsory.
Dee Dee, recent more detailed analysis shows that the very elderly, who actually lived through WWII, substantially voted Remain. My late mother-in-law was one such, for instance. Had my own parents lived long enough, then I reckon that they would have too.
Over the years I have had huge fun corresponding by letter with TVLA (Crapita); all the more so as we have not owned a TV for some 15 years. I have put down on paper that no employee of TVLA has common law access to our property. Added to that, that if they think I am lying about having no TV, then they need to put that down on paper, and I will pass it on to a legal bod.
Silence ensues for a couple of years; then off we go again.
Similarly, if they address the letter to "The Occupant", I return it marked " Not Known Here".
"Cheerful Edward said...
Dee Dee, recent more detailed analysis shows that the very elderly, who actually lived through WWII, substantially voted Remain. My late mother-in-law was one such, for instance. Had my own parents lived long enough, then I reckon that they would have too.
19 July 2019 at 08:31"
Yea\hm but they'll be dead even sooner than the likes of Leavers like me, so like me, their votes in this matter do not count. Apparently.
The BBC can kiss my hairy arse before I pay them a sot. Not paid, not going to pay.
If the BBC can ignore their Charter requirement(s) I can ignore them.
Given it takes me an hour to drive to any semblence of 'civilisation' I doubt wheter they'll even bother to send their Stazi around either. I might consider inviting them around but who knows.... I may be out the day they are supposed to attend.......
If the BBC don't want people who haven't paid to watch their output they have every technical facility at their disosal to stop them - the fact that they don't WANT to do that speaks volumes for their motivation to prosecute.
"Given it takes me an hour to drive to any semblance of 'civilisation'..."
Didn't know that Yorkshire was that big, Dave.
The following worked for me nearly 10 years ago. And trust me life is better without the idiot box, blood pressure down to normalish and more free time for real stuff.
(named person)
Customer Services
TV Licensing
Bristol
BS98 1TL
Dear Madam,
My TV license number xxxxxxxxxx expires on DD-MM-YY, I will not be renewing it. On or before DD-MM-YY TV equipment at this address will have been disposed of. After DD-MM-YY no contract will exist between us. I withdraw any implied right of access to my property, to yourselves, your employees and any agents acting on your behalf. This matter is now closed, no further correspondence will be entered into.
Yours !"%^&%**
Think it is time for an updated version of Patrick Moore's book 'Bureaucrats how to annoy them'- a very enjoyable read in it's time.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2254467/How-drive-jobsworths-potty-IN-devilishly-inventive-manifesto-late-astronomer-Sir-Patrick-Moore-tells-fought-box-ticking-bullies.html
So these people, to whom no great problem would stem, from a total disconnection from the Mainland, caused by a no-deal exit from the European Union - because "we" survived two World Wars - are perhaps to be KILLED, by being informed that they now need a TV licence like everyone else, are they?
This Island Race aren't quite the stern stuff that some would like to claim then really, are they Raedwald?
Ah well.
The mindless troll had to didn't he?
Don't act a bigger arse than you are already Edward - from just a couple of weeks ago "Pensioner, 81, killed herself after her pension was wrongly frozen
Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/09/pensioner-81-killed-pension-wrongly-frozen-9471231/?ito=cbshare
Yes, there will be some old people so isolated, so uncared for that the TV is their only link, their sole companion and their best friend. Some Crapita thug trying to extort money from them that they can't afford with the risk of criminal prosecution and imprisonment could well push a slavishly law-abiding responsible elder to decline and death or even self-murder.
You know it's true so don't troll me on this.
The piety-levity interplay can always kick in, Raedwald, so let me also remind those here of the steel workers in South Wales and elsewhere, facing repossession, as a result of exiting the European Union and the consequent loss of their jobs.
The statistics of the family break-ups, suicides, and the rest, which occur among the thousands yet to be so affected will appear in time.
@Cheerful
We stay in the EU, and "save" the car industry or whatever else and within six months factories are closed as production is moved to Slovakia or wherever.
Ever considered that?
What would stop them and what could we do about it within the EU framework.
So staying in the EU absolutely guarantees the future of Port Talbot?
It's a useful point that you make to Raybond, Raedwald.
Perhaps an outline of how the English and Scottish jurisdictions function would dispel this silly folklore about "the common law", in which so many of your commenters appear to believe?
Our EU membership has no bearing on their character. All that is required is for member states to replicate European Union rules where necessary within their own systems.
Incidentally, the Supreme Court ruling in the Gina Miller case, that Parliament must approve the implementation of Article Fifty, was a common law one, like most of what happens in courts.
I entered DL98 1TL on Google Maps , switched to the aerial photo and then Street View - where the first business I saw was a Funeral Director..
"Events, dear boy, events"
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