27 February 2009

Update: 7 March 2010

And so it goes on. Another letter - the usual lie about how I haven't contacted them. My address has been 'passed to Enforcement Officers' and so on. The usual unpleasant attempts to intimidate me. I'm sure this must count as criminal harassment. It does make you feel a bit miserable to be harrassed like this.

And here it is. Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. Since (1) ii) and (1) iii) apply (it is a threat and they are making untrue statements about my not having contacted them) and it is the case that the purpose is to cause me anxiety - they are trying to worry me into paying for something and (2) (a) does not apply because the BBC can have no grounds for believing that I owe them for a TV Licence (indeed I've explained to them several times in writing that I don't watch TV) it would appear to me that the BBC is indeed guilty of an offence. The fine I note is currently £2,500.00 which is hardly likely to worry the BBC.

The BBC is clearly using the argument that people have not replied to previous letters as grounds for believing that they might require a license. Even leaving aside the case where, like myself, people have contacted them in the past, this is an abuse of the law. Not replying to their letters is not I suspect what parliament intended when it said that a company must have reasonable grounds for believing their claim was genuine - but it is obvious that this is the defence they intend to use in court. Again; there is no requirement to register for not using a TV. The BBC is riding slipshod all over the law.

From a wider societal point of view this is a very good example of the behaviour of what the author Ivan Illich described as a 'manipulative right-wing institution'. The BBC no doubt clamours for the law on TV licensing but shows its own cynical attitude with a campaign which distorts and bends the law. It about power, not respect for the law. (Read a review on Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society here - PDF).

Update: 13 February 2010

At last! A visit! Unfortunately I wasn't in. They came today and pushed a 'letter' - well a sort of 'notice' through my door. This is a real disapointment - not only did I miss them but having missd them I missed the opportunity to put an end to this. By the way: this is after 9 missives - various kinds of letters and leaflets etc - each warning me that a visit was just about to happen..

The 'notice' they've left is even more outrageous than usual. There is the usual lie that they do this to people who have not written back to them; I have, about 5 times. The system works on a cycle. The point is it isn't enough just to tell them that you don't watch TV - you have to do so in every cycle; each cycle is about 18 months apart I think. I'm still on the electoral register for this address - which they certainly have a copy of because that's the foundation of their whole system. So - it is pretence that they don't still know that I live here. But anyway; the main point about this is that there is no law that says I have to communicate with them at all. You need a TV Licence to watch TV but there is no requirement to register if you don't (say like SORN for cars). The BBC is just making this up. So - when they also (now) say "We also visit the homes of people who have stated that they don't have televisions or only have black and white TV sets to verify these statements. This is just a routine visit and should only take a few minutes." they are acting like a sort of illegal gestapo.

It really amazes me that the BBC can get away with this. The actual work of lying and harrassing people is carried out by Capita - the IT consultancy which has grown fat out of government contracts while screwing up simple payments which ordinary people actually need. But it originates with the BBC.

Just today on their web site (which you do not need a licence to look at) they have an 'investigation' into a firm which helps people write off bank loans and credit card debts in cases where the banks have made mistakes on the paperwork so the debts are unenforceable. Not much of a coup; some minor almost semantic point about one of this firm's promotional claims is paraded as investigative journalism. What a a joke. If they wanted to practice some 'investigative journalism' they could start with the dishonest and frightening campaign which they subject people to who simply don't watch TV.

Update: 30 May 2009

After a batch of about 4 letters all promising a visit it was beginning to look like bluff. There is only so many times you can write to someone threatening to turn up on their doorstep and not do it and expect to be taken seriously. Now there's a letter saying my 'address is on the list to be visited this month'. We'll see. Otherwise the letter contains the usual threats. And the 'you must not ignore this letter' one - which, of course, I haven't. Even though I don't use TV and don't need a license I've written to them about 5 times to explain that this is the case. I certainly haven't ignored them - in fact they appear to have ignored my letters. There are all the usual false claims to have power; 'Enforcement Officers' (retired Post Office workers) from the 'enforcement' division (Capita) will take a statement under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. (Only they won't because I've got no intention of co-operating).

Well, after all this I'm looking forward to the 'officials' arriving. But, of course they may yet not arrive. It is after all much cheaper to lie and threaten than it is to actually inquire.

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I've been getting another batch of nasty, frightening letters from 'TV Licensing'. The software starts the sequence after every 12 or 18 months. A series of increasingly nasty letters. Usually I write and remind them that I don't have a TV and that seems (sometimes it takes two letters) to stop their letters. This time, I'm fed up as I've already told them about 5 times, so I'm just ignoring them and seeing where the sequence leads. Currently they are threatening to send 'Enforcement Officers' around who will interview me under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. It all sounds terribly official.

Most of it is a pack of lies. The envelopes say on them 'Action Required Immediately'. This is a lie. No one is obliged to communicate with 'TV Licensing' at all. The threats to send the Enforcement 'Officers' round is sounding a bit thin as they keep saying they'll do that if I don't reply and then they say it again in the next letter, in a slightly different way. For example the most recent letter is signed personally by someone from the Solent Enforcement Team - to make it sound like it has been escalated, when, in fact, all that has happened in all likelihood, is that the computer has gone on to the next step. The 'Enforcement Officers' are private employees of a firm of contractors; without a warrant they have no right to enter your home. TV Licensing is a marketing term for a group of contractors hired by the BBC.

The most recent letter is designed to make me feel fear. It is a testimony to its crude psychology that it succeeds even though I am totally 'innocent' and do not need a license. I suppose this is fairly trivial except there is a theme here. This is a public body, the BBC, a so-called 'respected public institution' yet they are engaged in a campaign of lying and intimidation targetting people about whom they have no evidence at all are breaking the law. It is the arrogant, complacent BBC. In fact I don't want to watch the shit that they produce. The defence is apparently that you can tell them you don't have a TV but as several of the correspondents linked on the site below point out :

i) Even if you tell them they still don't believe you and demand in some cases entry to your home.
ii) They will keep writing. At best they stop for 2 years (much less in my case) and then start again - even though they could see from the electoral register that it is the same person at the address, and I've already told them I don't use TV
iii) No one is obliged to tell them anything - why should I help them by answering their rude correspondence; I have no interest in the subject.

Finally; it seems to be the case that many of the people who are prosecuted for TV License evasion each year are poor single women. No doubt a) they can't afford the license b) use telly to keep the kids quiet c) are lonely so let the 'Enforcment Officers' in. BBC are bastards really.

Reading through the newsgroups on this I find quite a lot of people saying that people who object to this are just being awkward. I asked myself whether that was the case and I don't think it is:

i) I have written to this organisation 5 times to tell them I don't use TV. To continue to send me quite threatening letters is inexcusable. No other business would behave like this. The police would not behave like this. It is harrassment, as well as implictly saying they don't believe me. In other words I may as well have not written back to them at all. When I complained about the rude letters I had back what now seems a totally insincere letter acknowledging my concerns, I think also saying they would write to me again after a period of time. In other words it appears that this goes on until you buy a TV license, which is actually quite funny. The BBC can't have much confidence in the quality of their programmes if they have to resort to this kind of tactic.

ii) In fact this is all about profit-maximisation and efficiency. The strategy adopted is this: compare a database of people on the electoral roll with those who have a TV license. Where someone does not have a TV license bombard them with nasty letters. This is very cheap - it needs a database and some stamps. No doubt the letters produce a crop of people who were actually evading the fee and who are frightened into paying. Indeed I would have thought anyone who needed to pay would give in unless perhaps they really couldn't afford it or had nerves of steel. Thus the BBC can get maximum compliance for a small cost. The problem is (and isn't this a standard problem of capitalism?) that values such as decency and civilised behaviour have bitten the dust. Senior figures in the BBC, and Capita who run this, must have decided quite consciously that a policy of frightening about 100,000 (?) totally innocent people is acceptable in their efforts to get their hands on as much license revenue as possible. The reason I won't help them any futher is I don't want to be a collaborator in such a sordid scheme. I could have replied to one of the rude letters which asked me to telephone them and arrange to have my home searched. But, apart from the fact that I value my privacy and see no reason to surrender it if I haven't done anything wrong, if I did this I would be enabling them to tick me off and thus directly supporting their strategy of assuming everyone without a license is guilty until proven otherwise.

The correct way to go about this would be something like this:

i) Write people who don't have a license ONE polite letter. Believe them. After all, even the police (whatever they may think privately) treat people as innocent until they have some actual evidence.
ii) If there is some evidence e.g that someone has bought a TV and doesn't have a license this perhaps justifies a more robust intervention, perhaps a single doorstep interview. (Though I have to say I find the fact that shops are reporting people for buying TVs something of a violation of privacy).
iii) Where there is concrete evidence of someone breaking the law then by all means conduct PACE interviews and get a search warrant (but see iv) below).

The problem is this approach would net far fewer people. But it would at least be decent and civilised, up to a point.

iv) Really, though, it is unpleasant that the BBC hounds poor single mums. A lot of single mums, living alone and managing children with very little money or support, must find a telly more or less indispensible. £150 is a more or less impossible sum to find living on benefit. TV license stamps are a humiliating joke. You still have to pay the full amount. It is ironic that it is probably this, the most vulnerable group, on whom the axe of the BBC's profit maximising and 'efficiency' drive falls most heavily.

What Capita are doing (on behalf of the BBC) and in the interests of their shareholders is basically this: take all the people in the country, subtract those who have a TV License and you are left with a dataset. Then shake this set, by submitting them to a barrage of intimidating letters and doorstep calls, long and hard (in fact continually, permanently) - and, obviously, a few rotten apples will fall out. No matter that the good apples in this dataset get a good bruising in the process. It is breathtakingly cynical. The BBC needs to go back to ethics school if they think that their 'duty' to maximise revenue from licenses justifies upsetting thousands of ordinary people who just happen not to watch TV.



Links

Marmalade
A blog about TV Licensing