I have just moved into a new house. The first ever letter delivered to my new address starts off with:
OFFICIAL WARNING THIS PROPERTY IS UNDER INVESTIGATION
One guess who it is from. It continues to complain that I have not replied to any of their previous letters (I moved in yesterday!), warns that an enforcement division has been authorised to visit my home (go on, make my day), that I might be interviewed under caution, prosecuted and fined £1000.
Way to welcome new customers. Can you imagine the gas company behaving like that?
Fantastic.
TV licensing I assume ? Not sure “customer” would describe your relationship to them, any more than it would describe the relationship a new prisoner has to his cellmate Bubba.
Agreed, Gib. I imagine some in the BBC might like to think they are serving customers, but they seem to use the neutral term “viewers”. I suppose my point is: if anyone is in any doubt that they are not a customer of the BBC, this proves it.
Welcome to your new home…
I’ve got a running cycle at the moment – we’re oscillating between “we’re going to open an investigation”, “inspectors are authorised to visit” (not by me they’re not) and I forget the 3rd one, before returning to “we’re going to open an investigation”.
They burn well.
I did once have a gas company try to demand my deeds before they’d open an account; they didn’t respond well to the threats I made to them about discriminating on the basis of a previous owner’s debt.
Then there was the water board twat who demanded my passport as proof that I wasn’t the person he was looking for (you’d think the huge removals van outside might have given the hint that my claim that I had just moved in might have had some grain of truth in it).
The only way to deal with obnoxious, officious little jerks like that is to be even more officious. Being able to quote relevant legislation helps immensely.
“Then there was the water board twat who demanded my passport as proof that I wasn’t the person he was looking for” — oh wow, I can just imagine how that conversation went!
An “enforcement officer” turned up at my home once.
I live in a block of flats, and (as with many blocks of flats) there is a doorbell that can be rung from outside the building and a button next to the intercom that I can use to open the door. However, somehow, this chap got someone to let him in the external door, and he walked up the steps and knocked on the actual door of my flat.
This is enough to annoy me in itself. Nobody who is not either a postman or an employee of the landlord should ever knock on my door rather than ringing the bell. However, I had the following conversation.
“Can I have a word with you”
“Who are you?”
“I am from TV licensing?”
“No, you can’t”.
After this, I was completely silent. So was he. Amusingly, a couple of minutes later, a preprinted leaflet came through the door saying that “Sorry, you were out when we called” and giving me the usual threats and saying another attempt to visit me would take place in future. That was more than a year ago. Since then I have just bee getting the usual pattern of about three different letters, sometimes with lots of frightening red at the top of the page, and very occasionally addressed to a tenant who apparently hasn’t lived there for a number of years.
Well, he’d waltzed into my home unannounced while the door was open (due to the boxes being carried in); I demanded that he leave and followed it up by offering to arrest him…
Then there was the TVLA scumbag I met when I was a student; he thought that he’d force his way past me into the block of flats when I opened the door to him. Hmm. Jiu jitsu 3 times a week and running around with a rifle most weekends; all in all, he got off very lightly. He was spitting though – threatened to have me done for the armlock he put himself in.
It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.
What a sweet and heartening story. I wish I had been there to help you out.
So, the “forcing their way into the public areas of blocks of flats without invitation” is a standard tactic, is it? I would be intrigued to know they are taught to do this, though, given the pretty clear illegality of the practice.
More drama than action, all told. My only worry was that the local filth were always very, very anti-student.
It does sound as if they’re quite keen on it as a tactic; I’m fairly sure it isn’t going to be found to be part of their official training though.
Reminded by this post, I just went and tried to get a refund from the tv licensing people, as it appears I’ve already paid up until February, but I am leaving the country in October.
I filled out their form, telling them this, and asking for the refund for that period from October to February.
Their email response I just received is:
—–
Thank you for your recent application for a refund on your TV Licence.
Your application can?t be considered until you stop needing your licence, as this would leave you without a licence whilst you continue to watch television.
We will process your application and issue any refund when you no longer require the licence.
—–
What bastards. They were even going to take out payment next month, as the start of the new year’s licensing – which starts in March 2011. They take your money 6 months in advance of the license!!! Not even the gas company does that, and you’re actually consuming their real product they provide.
So they now expect me to correspond with them from another country to get my refund, or perhaps I’ll just stop watching TV now.