Has anybody had any experience of dealing with the BBC licence fee collecting agents?
I have been receiving a series of increasingly dramatic letters from this company telling me that I face being questioned under caution for not purchasing a TV license. This culminated with a visit from one of their inspectors a few days ago. I politely explained that I do not have a television so I do not need a license, and I showed evidence (external to the house) of the disconnected,unusable aerial.
He said that he would need to take a few details, starting with my full name. I told him that I would not be giving any such information and he replied that the company would therefore continue to harass me in the future.
What is the next likely thing to happen? Will they storm my house, will I go to prison, or will it just be a public hanging.
You could be on a loser there, you obviously have a computer and an Internet connection, and since BBC iPlayer is also covered by the licence fee, not having an actual TV or aerial isn't going to buy you a great deal. Emigrate ?
That is what I thought. How long will it be before everybody in the UK with an internet connection is forced to buy a TV licence because they could possibly use their computer to watch live tv broadcasts?
I just regard it as a tax, I tolerate it, I do have a 'telly' but I watch mainly non BBC chaneels on it. In comparison for what I get taken off me by Income tax, council tax, fuel duty and VAT, the Beebs cut is pretty minimal. Personally I'd just pony up for the licence fee and live a quiet life. The stress will probably kill you before the £150 a year.......
I'm worried that you may have already broken the law by refusing to give your details - however do check out this site that seems to answer a lot of questions: TV Licensing mini-FAQ
The BBC use a private fee collecting company and I (everybody) have no legal requirement to give them any details whatsoever without them resorting to the law to obtain such details.
and since BBC iPlayer is also covered by the licence fee,
I don't think that is the case. It is only live TV that requires a licence. The iPlayer is not live and so does not require a licence.
I don't have a TV (at one of my houses) and periodically get harassed. They have yet to find me in for a visit. You name and address can be got from the electoral roll so they have no need to ask for it. As long as you actually don't watch live TV your OK. They have to prove you do it not that you simply have the capability to do it.
One problem I had, at another house, was that the house had two post codes one for the front door and one for the back. So I kept getting visits when I would show them the licence and they would tell me it had the wrong post code on it and I would tell them to argue it with the Post Office.
I have checked up and you apparently don't need a licence for normal iplayer, but when they do 'simulcasts' of live TV you do, the official line is that the number of people with broadband internet and no TV is very small and it would require a change in the law to require a licence. iPlayer is funded by the licence fee and currently exists in this limbo land. If the number of households with broadband and no TV licence becomes signficant, you can bet your life they'll be on it.
For the moment this whole episode is an amusing distraction and I know there are many other people in the same position. I will continue as I have started.
Paying for something that I do not want or use is not an option.
Owning a device capable of receiving broadcast transmissions does not require a licence, use of the device does, but there seems to be a slightly grey area about having the device available for use so if I had a tv connected to an aerial sitting on my living room table it would be unreasonable to try and claim that the tv was not used for receiving these broadcasts.
The computer is what I am interested in because I have a broadband connection and I can see that this is going to become an issue in the future where some form of licence enforcement is debated. For the average household this will not be a problem but virtually every business premise that I go into seems to have an internet connected computer which could be interpreted as available to receive broadcast transmissions.
you need to pay the fee if you have any device in your house that can play TV, i do believe a PC counts
No that is not true. In the old days you required a licence "for the installation of TV receiving apparatus". Now with the advent of internet TV it has changed to usage.
There are no grey areas.
A TV in the living room requires a licence even if you only use it for watching DVDs, if it is connected to an aerial and tuned in. If it is not capable of receiving TV, that is the tuner has been disabled or there is no aerial and reception in that location requires one. Then there is no need for a licence.
When Acorn made a teletext adaptor for their computer, you needed a TV licence even though you were not receiving pictures but data and if you had a colour monitor you needed a colour TV licence.
With the internet it is not the capability that is licensable but the usage. The difference being you can have the internet for many reasons that do not require a licence.
Two postcodes! How big is the house?
Quite small actually. It was a terrace built on a rough road into a field in about 1850. Then in 1970 they built a housing estate in the field and sent a road round the back of the terrace. So the back looked like the front and every one treated it like the front. Except of course the post office that continued to delver mail to the original location which now looked like the back. We would get puzzled leaflet pushers asking why no one had letter boxes in their front doors. ;D
My father's garage has a postcode. Before the county would give him a permit to build the garage, they required he get an address for it. Why did it need an address? No one ever gave an answer. It didn't cost anything so he didn't fight it.
The truly sad part is that the garage gets junk mail.
It's OK GM, if Obama gets his way, they'll have a nice expensive Socialist system over there too.
Look on the bright side, They've just called the general election, over here triggering the political posturing on the votes merry-go-round. We only have to put up with it for a month, the Yanks have it for two years (slight exaggeration ).
@Grumpy_Mike (and all the other poor souls in the UK):
OUCH!
The next time I catch a fellow American crying about taxes, I'll give em a good hardy slap to get their attention followed by a swift kick to the groan so they can share in your pain!
