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.

Great Expectations?

No matter how lengthy and bitter my experience of TV Licensing, they never fail to come up with new ways of appalling me. And they have managed to do so with this, their latest letter:

First off, it appears that the escalation to the Operations Director occurs when TV Licensing say so, not when I try to escalate. This letter has been responded to by the same person as my first letter of complaint.

Their apparent inability to understand my assertions that I do not require a TV license is explained: they are absolutely determined to visit my house. This represents a considerable escalation in their harassment of me. As it is plainly in response to my attempting to follow the procedure required by the BBC Trust, this represents a considerable risk on their part. Oh, unless of course they are confident of 'proving' I am an evader rather than a non-TV user. There's a tiny voice in my head that says that perhaps TV Licensing are confident because they can fabricate all the evidence they need. After all I have seen, I am beginning to believe that voice

Escalating The Complaint

It cannot be any surprise that I am not satisfied with TVL's response. But never fear: in this event TVL's procedure indicates that I should escalate the complaint to their Operations Director. And so that is what I do with my next letter.

Escalating the Complaint

Its Escalating In Size As Well As Level

As the contents of my letter are there to read I won't go into detail about it. But what I do find baffling is TV Licensing's inability to determine from it that I do not require a TV License.

And The Answer Is...

On their website, TV Licensing state 'We aim to fully respond to 99.9% of complaints within eight working days'. Well, here is the letter that I received within the specified timescale.

A 'Full' Response From TV Licensing

I am not going to detail my criticism of their letter in this post: that will be contained within my letter replying to it. But I can't refrain from saying how unhappy I am. I complained about harassment that took place over a lengthy period of time, not about a single letter. It must be very easy to 'fully respond' to a complaint if you can ignore its contents and, instead, respond to a complaint that is easier to handle.

A Dear John Letter For TV Licensing

Ultimate responsibility for how TV Licensing behave lies with the BBC. You cannot pass the job of collecting money onto another body and turn a blind eye to the way they perform the task. If we go to the BBC Trust's website, we find there the procedure for making a complaint. The first step, they inform us, is to complain directly to TV Licensing. The address to write to is given: it's a familiar one. It's the same address you write to informing TV Licensing that you don't need a TV License. But this is the system required by the BBC Trust and so I will follow it. I will write a letter of complaint to TV Licensing.

Some people can remain calm whatever the provocation. I've never had that ability. I don't cave when I am under pressure, but I can find my anger getting the better of me. I really want to tell TV Licensing the full depth of my contempt, my revulsion, for people like them. So I have to spend days over it, slowly editing out the parts where my feelings have overruled cold logic: trying to replace the emotional bits with something, anything, that might actually give TV Licensing pause for thought.

That'll sort them ....not

The problem is that, knowing they send out hundreds of thousands of letters like those they send me, they must get a lot of letters of complaint back. So they have surely heard it all before; and I am certain they just don't give a damn. The futility of what I am doing simply adds to my anger.