Aye, and if you use recorded delivery they have bugger all defense if they loose the letter. The last couple of times I've moved I just produced a form letter, a database with the relevant information in(*) and did a mail merge. If they do loose the letter you just print another and scrawl COPY over it...
(*) Their address, account number(s) etc
Oh don't worry the default "everyone has a telly" will soon click in and you'll have to tell them again and again and...
No you need a licence to recieve television broadcasts intended for general reception. They word the licence requirements to cover cable, terrestial, satellite in all formats. Not sure about broadband delivery methods but with that starting to roll out, if it's not in now it will be soon.
Unless the law has changed recently ~ within the past 5 years ~ the license is required if the equipment is "capable" of receiving tv transmissions, irrespective of whether it is being used in that way or not.
I'm not sure on the finer points, but AIUI when they send the van round they are looking for a TV. If you sold your TV, and informed the licensing people of that, I would have thought you'd be OK. If you got a visit, all they would find was a computer and no telly. What you did with your computer would be up to you. How would they find out if you had been (for example) watching a simultaneously-streamed broadcast?
It's the telly that does it - you pay if you have the equipment to receive, even if you never watch BBC, and even if the TV is in the loft and you claim you never watch it (as some people have tried).
But ICBW...
But there hasn't been a Radio License for years!
So *all* of your equipment, by itself or any of the other kit, could not recieve any UK orginated television material. In which case I'd agree but I'd be surprised, unless you took some fairly extraordinary measures, that you could only recieve non-UK broadcasts.
But this whole thing is *VERY* grey and the TVLA are like a terrier once they get going and simply won't let go.
As usual we've allowed ourselves to be conned and have just let the politicians walk all over us.
I appreciate that this is not the legal statement of the licence requirements etc. but my current bit of paper states: "to install and use colour and black and white receivers at the premises." "to install and use any equipment to receive or record television program services...."
Two thoughts - What does 'install' mean in this context? My recollection is that the wording used to be substantially different mentioning something like 'receive broadcast signals' which is much more precise. Does anyone have an old licence lying round?
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:13:50 +0100, beamendsltd scribbled the following nonsense:
martyn's site
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:12:28 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@howl.com scribbled the following nonsense:
The Highly Stupid Banking Company have severely annoyed me recently, especially when "John" became "Manjit" later in the call......
They're scripted where ever they are, at least you can understand the Indians when they read off the screen, more than you can say for most Scottish call centres 8-). Greg
There are Scots round here! We are offended!!
No, we asked if we had to disable the equipment in any way, but they said there was no need. I suppose that woe betide us if they caught us at watching UK broadcasts...
We had a satellite dish, Toshiba head unit, VCR, DVD recorder and telly, none of which was altered in any way. I can give you the bloke's name, if you're interested.
Stuart
Just as a note of interest - in this country (Australia) radio and TV licences (system was copied from the UK) were abolished about thirty years ago. The problem with this is that the ABC (copied from the BBC) is dependent on funding from general revenue, and hence much more subject to political pressure by the government of the day. JD
Try going to the proper licensing website and reading about it, they even give you a handy example, e.g. if you have a normal colour TV not connected to an aerial that is only used to watch DVDs and play games consoles. They state explicitly that you do NOT need a TV license in such a situation as the equipment is not capable of receiving TV signals, i.e. it doesn't have an aerial in it. The fact that it's a telly is neither here nor there, it has to be a TV plugged into a working aerial.
I am in the above situation, I have told them that I am, and they have told me that I do not need a TV license but that they may send someone round sometime to check (which they won't as I live in a small village about an hour from the nearest large towns).
Is there a cat license? I have a bee license for my pet bee Eric.
It doesn't seem to stop Philip Adams on Late Night Live laying into the government all the time, one of my favourite podcasts. Then again I suppose he's on late at night for a reason!
Damn! What was that bill this morning then?
G8JFT
I was brought up in Scotland, but I still had to get one Scottish call centre droid to spell a word for me recently, and was most surprised to find that the word in question turned out to be "fountain".. She was a tad miffed.
Oh I don't know, a nice female broad Scotish accent would probably be able to sell me bottled air, in fact I felt almost gutted when a Scottish lass called to find out why I'd moved from Scottish Power... it's all in the voice I Guess.
right back to reality
Lee D
I work with a couple of Scottish blokes and even after living down here (Yorkshire) for a while we sometimes still have difficulty understanding them, what's more worrying is that they say they now can't understand their own family when they go back home 8-)
Greg
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