These guys are hilarious. I’ve written previously about the adventures of a friend who doesn’t own a TV. Now they’re having some fun with me.
I recently bought myself a Topfield Freeview PVR from an online retailer, and thought nothing more of it. Then, a couple of weeks later, this came in the post:
Dear Mr Fisher
We have recently been advised that you bought television receiving equipment in May 2007 from Empire Electro Centres. However, we have no record of a TV Licence in your name for the above address.
Using TV equipment to watch or record television programme services without a valid licence is against the law.
The letter goes on to describe the various ways I can get a TV licence.
The funny thing is, we have a TV license. I’m holding it in my hand right now. It has on it the correct address and is valid until 31st December 2007. It’s just not in my name. The TV Licensing website is quite clear that you only need one licence for the household.
Yesterday I got a second letter:
I wrote to you a few weeks ago regarding your purchase of television receiving equipment in May 2007 from Empire Electro Centres. However, we still have no record of a TV Licence in your name for the above address.
The letter goes on to threaten me with court and a £1000 fine. Nowhere in the letter is there a suggestion that there might exist a licence for my address in someone else’s name.
A cynical analysis might be that they are deliberately trying to harass people into buying more licences than they need. But perhaps Hanlon’s razor applies.
What strikes me is that anything government does comes with all sorts of enforcement baggage. It’s not simply a matter of paying £135.50 and watching TV. Bureaucratic infrastructure is needed to collect information, send letters, detect and threaten. People who sell TVs are threatened into passing on the personal details of their customers to the bureaucracy. Otherwise voluntary interaction is thus perverted. Meanwhile, I feel a forboding sense of being watched: the government knows and cares about an innocent online purchase I made. It’s spooky.
Update: A colleague has just received the same letter at work because he ordered a TV tuner and had it delivered here. I’d like to see an enforcement “officer” turn up here…!
I had this a couple of years back – I’m the only one in the household who actually buys anything TV related, but the licence is in Helen’s name.
What I got told is that their database doesn’t identify whether a particular address is a house or flats (i.e. a normal house that’s been split into upstairs and downstairs flats, not a block of flats) or whatever, so their database flags up a possible lack of licence if the names don’t match.
Given that more and more people are co-habiting these days you would have thought they’d have come up with some better method but evidently not
Not wishing to state the obvious, but why did you give them your details for the licence question when you brought the equipment? You already have a licence.
I always give 1 Privacy Street, Gipping, IP6 1AA
End of problem.
Jonathan: they got my details from the delivery address. If I’d bought from a bricks and mortar store no doubt I’d have used the home address of someone high up in the BBC.
Ah, that’s interesting. I was always told that they HAD to ask for the address it was being used at, seperately. You might want to look into that, because they MIGHT be violating your something-or-other by passing those details without asking.