And Its Goodbye From Them

The weekend of the mystery caller was followed just a few days later by a surprise. After all these years of correspondence with TVL a letter of mine seems, finally, to have reached someone with a measurable IQ. As many TVL victims might doubt such an assertion is possible I'd best present the evidence.

There's Life On Mars After All?

I have to say I doubt the sincerity of this letter. I don't think any TVL employee can really be thinking 'oh gosh did we accidentally harass someone?'. I think they know very well that what they do is unacceptable. And I'm pretty sure they will continue to behave in exactly the same way for as long as they are allowed to do so. But the part of the letter that really stops me going further is the bit about their already being in the process of reviewing their current conduct. Not that I think they are going to change in any meaningful way: it's simply that a review is the best I could expect from my complaint anyway.

The line that sums things up is supplied by TVL's letter: This has put a stop to licence enquiry letters, and will prevent any more being sent unnecessarily. There has never been, and there never will be, any necessity for TVL to harass me by sending me their letters. What they are really saying is that at some point in the future, whenever they decide, they will be back.

An Odd Weekend

The weekend following my receipt of the NSA1 was marked by an unusual occurrence: a nuisance caller. This individual (whoever he was) was in the habit of calling me, listening to my answer phone chuntering away, and then not leaving any message. Assuming it was the same person, he made at least three calls because there were three messages (all of them with no actual verbal content) on the phone when I checked. He may have made more calls but these would not have left any evidence if he hadn't waited until the answer phone finished its little speech.

There is an explanation for what happened here. TVL have a problem with addresses such as mine: I live in a prosperous middle-class area with few, if any, TV License evaders. The people working for TVL do not want to spend their time in my neighbourhood: it simply doesn't pay for them to do so. And if you'd like to understand why, then I suggest you look at this job advert. According to the list of fees the TVL agent receives, he's wasting his time visiting me.

So I think that when the TVL man gets pressured by the management to leave his usual stalking grounds among the badly-educated,vulnerable households in the poorer parts of the nearest major town, he makes sure he isn't going to find himself outside an empty house. In any civilised society you make an appointment, but with TVL they don't care to do that in case their target Eats the Telly or whatever. An anonymous phone call can be used to determine whether the householder is at home before the TVL man makes his move.

Escalating, Really

Despite the opinions of at least one TVL manager, my complaint gets escalated through the system when I decide. So my next letter is simply another attempt to escalate.

Nothing new here

Shortly after this was sent, I received the expected NSA1. Although this is the letter TVL routinely sends out before one of their declared visits, I don't see what legitimate purpose it serves. It doesn't contain any of the information I might want when I find the man from TVL on my doorstep: my right to simply tell them to go away, my right to silence, or the complexities of what PACE requires from an interview. Funnily enough, although there's no room for any of that, there is room for the same tired old stuff about £1,000 fines and all the ways to buy that TV license I don't need. In the absence of a better explanation, I can only imagine it's another attempt to ramp up the pressure on me.

The jolly old NSA1

The NSA1 arrived before TVL had digested and decided upon my second attempt to escalate. I will record their response to that next.