On TV licences
Has anyone heard of someone being caught by a detector van? Because I don't think they exist.
(frankspencer, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 15:48, 30 replies)

They don't.
They simply have a list of every residence with a TV licence and go round to those residences that don't.
(irv made you eat your parents in a chilli on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 15:55, closed)

Yes
What irv said. They were simply a scare tactic.
( Afinkawan Yes I can hear you Clem Fandango, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 15:57, closed)

They do so exist.
Far from being the technological marvels we're led to believe, I reckon they're more the transit minibus type, loaded up with nosey parkers who check the register then spy through your windows to see if you've got a gogglebox.

It's a right piss-take though. I'd happily give them a couple of quid a year for the Attenborough wildlife doco's (sad, I know) and a fiver or so for Cbeebies (for the bairn - I'm not THAT bad!). The rest of their stuff is a steaming heap of tosh though and they can stick it right up their...........
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 15:58, closed)

The method isn't infallible
I get a threatening letter every month or so telling me that I don't have a licence and to sort it out at once or Action Will Be Taken.
Since I do, in fact, have a licence I'm quite looking forward to them turning up on my doorstep, especially since they'll have had to have driven about 130 miles in their little van with the satellite dish on the roof just to have it waved in their face.

My licence waved in their face, I mean. Although...
(richardm, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 15:59, closed)

Their methods
really are rather shit.

As above, our licence is in my name and we got a new telly from asda using the missus' debit card. She got all the threatening letters through and it seemed to be reaching the point of bailiffs before someone actually phoned us to sort it out.

I only left it so long on principle. I wasn't going to pay for a call & navigate a computer option system etc to sort out their fuck-up.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:08, closed)

So
If I buy a TV for cash and give a false address, there's no way they're going to catch me. I don't receive letters about previous tenants' TVs.

Plus, I've heard that you can have TV and not pay a licence fee provided you can prove it's not tuned in or in working order. Ergo, take the plug off before the investigators get to the room (I'm assuming they need a warrant to get into your home) and you're safe.
(frankspencer, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:13, closed)

...
You can have a TV without a license so long as you don't use it for the purposes of receiving television signals. So if you just use it for your playstation, video, etc, you're safe.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:15, closed)

When I was a student
I had a TV, crappy old thing, that I used to watch DVDs, didn't have an aerial for it.

The inspectors came round the halls, and grudgingly accepted that I couldn't watch it, so didn't have to pay the fee.
( Cawl, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:16, closed)

What you've heard is basically bollocks.
If it's not tuned in but is capable of being tuned in, you need a licence. 'Working order' is not negated by cutting the plug off - the TV is still in working order, it just doesn't have a plug.

Working order would be negated by, for instance, snashing the cathode ray tube into tiny pieces with a big hammer or something.
( Afinkawan Yes I can hear you Clem Fandango, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:16, closed)

Erm..
1. If you have a TV for whatever purpose, you must have a licence.

2. If you put a false address, your address still won't have a licence so they could still come round.

Big list of all addresses in country - Slightly smaller list of those with TV licences = Addresses for them to check out.
(irv made you eat your parents in a chilli on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:21, closed)

Ireland
In Ireland if there is a TV in your house, working or not, you need a license for it.

If they catch you with a tv that has a giant hole in it, they will make you pay for a license for it.
(oeb, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:22, closed)

Nah, you don't need a license just to own a TV.
That would be stupid, how else would you watch videos?

Edit: straight from the horse's mouth:

TV Licensing website

You need a TV Licence to use any television receiving equipment such as a TV set, digital box, DVD or video recorder, PC, laptop or mobile phone to watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:32, closed)

What I'm saying is...
If I buy a TV for cash and give a false address, why would anyone come looking in my flat for someone without a licence?
(frankspencer, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:36, closed)

Because
your flat wouldn't be registered as having a license "attached" to it.
( Cawl, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:38, closed)

Yes they might well still check you out
I think their default position is that everybody in the country has a television, so if your address doesn't have a licence allocated to it then you must be breaking the law. Nice, eh?

I know one chap who has no licence because he really doesn't have a television, and even though he's tried to sort it out numerous times (including a visit from an inspector who conceded that he had no television to licence) he still gets letters about it.
(richardm, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:41, closed)

..
@slaughter - ok then you're right, you can own a TV set without a licence provided the set is physically incapable of receiving a television signal.

@frankspencer - because they would know that that address does not have a TV licence attached to it. They work on the assumption that everyone has a telly.
(irv made you eat your parents in a chilli on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:41, closed)

tv licences
haha i just had one of those inspectors at my house

luckly he took my word that i didnt have a tv

he smelt of fags
(das1joker, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:41, closed)

Draconian
You know, all this TV license talk makes me think we dont have it quite so bad over here. I guess thats why we fought the Revolutionary War back in the 18th Century: To keep you lot from making us license our tv's!

Hmmm. It does all sound a bit like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, you know? That Child Catcher? Only this one comes 'round and offers free DVD's and Videos and Sky TV! All you have to do is come out with your unlicensed television.

We just pay the state sales tax when we buy one. No license. What exactly IS the license used for? BBC? Because if thats the case, then you should get about 80% of it back because, aside from Little Britain and the Catherine Tate show, its all rubbish!

:) (just kidding!)

Sean
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:47, closed)

Ah, but...

The way I understand it, they decide which houses to visit based on the correlation between TVs bought (and addresses given) and licenses applied for. Since I never receive letters at my flat about having or not having a licence, it's safe to assume that I'm on no record. They would only catch me if they came to stand outside my flat at night and look up three floors to see whether I'm watching a flickering light - and even then it could be a laptop. They'd have to prove beyond all doubt that I had a TV (me not having left any record of having bought one) without getting into my flat. Because I wouldn't let them in without a warrant.

[ This is not the case in houses which owned a TV at some stage in the past - the ones that receive constant reminders.]
(frankspencer, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 16:56, closed)

@irv
It actually really annoys me that they assume everyone in the country owns a TV. I spent my 3rd year at uni, and most of my masters, without a TV. They sent me a letter saying something along the lines of "do you know it's the law to have a license if you have a tv?". I thought 'fair enough', and threw the letter away, as I obviously didn't have one. I got another letter. And another: I replied to this one, saying "I don't have one, stop writing to me". I got another 3 letters, increasing in threat, printed on red paper. I replied to those as well. The letters started saying "license vans are in your area! you will get caught!"

I eventually stopped them by writing a letter threatening legal action for harrassment, and suggested they reimburse me for my time. Tey wrote a lovely apologetic letter back, and sent me a stamp. A single, solitary stamp, as compensation for writing about 6 letters to them telling them the same thing every time. Damn them.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 17:47, closed)

No need for a licence if you don't pick up broadcast signals
People are quite right when they say you don't need a licence if you don't receive broadcast signals. You can have a television in your house and as long as it's not connected up to an aerial and used to watch broadcast telly, you're quite alright.

Of course, that doesn't take into account that the TV licencing people are utter pillocks and won't take no for an answer. Every year we have to ring them up and get very cross with someone who refuses to believe we could possibly *not* have a telly. I usually end up chatting to a supervisor and getting extremely cross before anything happens.

We've had the full range of letters. Threats, pleas, warnings that there's a van round the corner, pink flimsy ones that look like summons. I just mark them 'return to sender' and put them back in the box now.

Despite all the threats, no-one's ever called and I don't think anyone will. They're quite welcome to, of course; we really don't have a telly. Bastards.
(xwizbt, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 18:18, closed)

No need for a licence if you only use it as a monitor.
I had a TV that I used for computer gaming, without an aerial. The authorities asked me to pay up, I explained that I didn't use it to watch TV and couldn't get a signal anyway, and they wrote back to say I didn't need a licence. I had it in black and white. Unlike my TV.

And yes, in my view there never were TV detector vans, though the technology is possible.
(enile, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 18:20, closed)

they DID exist... I SWARE
I believe the detector van used to work with old TV's becuase they gave of some kind of brain-frying death-waves when tuned in.

New TV's don't give this off so the vans's became moribund (Mmmm moribund).
(Amos Moses, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 18:25, closed)

no licence
In my old flat, The roof aerial was roken so I couldnt get a picture. i tried a few of those set-top things and they all gave rubbish pictures too. Too many tall buildings nearby.
Anyway, I gave up with it as I hardly watch telly anyway. I never renewed my licence and wrote to them explaining the situation, and that although I did have a telly, i couldnt get a signal on it and only used it to watch dvds.
They wrote back saying "ok then" and I never heard from them again.
(dave likes cheese, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 19:04, closed)

@bobfossil
Although that's obviously really irritating, you have to hand it to them that sending you just a stamp is quite funny.

My mum used to get a letter from M+S every month telling her she still owed them 6p, 18p less than the cost of the stamp they put on the envelope the letter was in.
(irv made you eat your parents in a chilli on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 19:51, closed)

there twats @ tvl
when living at my old flat i had a tv licence which my ex was paying, (as my bank account was crap and it took an age for money to go in let alone pay out)

i got a new telly in my name,
i got badgered
and badgered until they came round
and saw the tv's in my flat and then he tried to accuse me of not having a licence *smile on his face*

his face dropped when i showed him an up to date licence, with my and my ex's name on it
TVL staff are cunts
( hooker1uk Filth monger of the lowest degree!, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 23:49, closed)

Engage dull mode. Dull mode engaged.
They do exist. Any CRT will emit a signal because of the enormous voltages involved making a picture. With 2 vans you can triangulate the position of the tube, and they can tell where it is and what you are watching. The only reason they don't use them now is that a it only picks up a tube, so monitors will give off a signal, and LCD/Plasma tellies work in a different way, so don't produce a detectable signal, and 20 years on from those ads computers are now powerful enough to be able to process a large database of addresses more efficiently, which is less of a faff.


Disengage dull mode. Dull mode off.
(tinypod will never learn. Ever., Sat 16 Feb 2008, 7:54, closed)

No...
Spring 2006. A house full of student dossers, who (in much the same way that the washing up piled high in the sink is ALWAYS someone else's responsibility) had systematically failed to purchase a TV license.
Letters came. Letters were left opened in the living room for someone else to deal with. Until...

D opened the door to a chap who asked if we had a TV in the house. "Er, I don't think so..." lied D, unconvincingly. "Can I come in and have a look" asked the man from TV Licensing as he barged past D into the filthy living room.

Now, in this house there were in fact three TVs, one in the living room, but in a dark corner - so I can only assume that the TV chap breezed past this in the hope of leaving the wretched student hovel before he contracted Student AIDS or similar.

D then proceeded to lead TV man upstairs, looking in the two bedrooms there which had no TV. Unfortunately he then was asked to lead the chap up to the attic room, so, knocking on the door D called out "Er, C, are you in? It's the TV Licensing man come to check for TVs."

So C called down "Yes.." but before he could finish the sentence, TV man was up the stairs to be immediately confronted by C, sat naked in bed covering his modest modesty, with Richard & Judy blaring out of his 32" widescreen.



We got away with paying for the rest of the year, they didn't backdate or fine us £1000.
(I_Am_Kloot Cock Piss Partridge, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 10:21, closed)

I've never bought one...
...since leaving home nigh on five and a half years ago. Just keep moving house, that's the key...!

Although I think my flatmate bought one for my current abode. Pah, coward
(Zutroy started without you, Mon 18 Feb 2008, 16:19, closed)

Ahh
so much ignorance...

As people have said, there's an assumption made, and vans exist, but they don't work so well with non-CRT screens.

But more to the point (and the students, had they known this, would have been fine), you can tell them exactly where to go unless they have a warrant.

By the time they go and get it, you will have detuned your TV. If they DO have it, you'll probably have time to do this before opening the door.



Also, you don't need a licence for TV on demand from itv or wherever, as it's not being broadcast as you watch.

I get letters non-stop, the last one claimed they caught 24,531 evaders last month.


That's one in sixty people in the whole country getting caught every five years. Maybe it's just that noone ever pays?
(Exiled Youth [witty comment], Tue 19 Feb 2008, 8:27, closed)