TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

Re:TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England by willtim on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @12:31PM (#25835988)

While I think that having some publicly funded radio/TV is a really good thing, the idea of the UK TV license and the subsequent enforcement is not. My friends elderly mother does not have or want a TV. She is constantly harassed and threatened by UK license enforcement. Her son has invited them into her home on numerous occasions, hoping that the legal threats and visits would cease, but to this day they have not. I object to having my license fee money spent on such abuse of vulnerable people.

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Re:TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England by seanhunter on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @12:52PM (#25836336)

Yeah. My father in law had the same experience. He once took an enforcement person into his house and insisted they go through the house together and conduct an exhaustive search of all the places a TV could be. "Perhaps it's in the cistern of the toilet? Let's look!...Not there? Perhaps it's in the bread bin..." etc etc

It is really bad the way they do this, and having seen the threatening letters they send out they could be very frightening. The letters were on the lines of "Our detectors have found that you have a TV and you have to pay the license fee or we'll send bailiffs around, take you to court etc", and the one I received once (when i too didn't have a TV) was printed on red paper.

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Re:TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England by 908B64B197 on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @01:20PM (#25849888)

Can you imagine having someone harassing an elderly person to get in house without a warrant here in America?

And that person to be paid and hired as a civil servant, in a completely unionized job with a pension fund?

If that's not the definition of a job program and how the welfare state has gone wrong I don't know what is.

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Re:TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England by willtim on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @01:41PM (#25850196)

I suspect the issue is partly caused by outsourcing the enforcement to private contractors and setting targets!

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Re:TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England by 908B64B197 on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @02:09PM (#25850539)

So they aren't even government employee. It's just some random person trespassing on your property.

I assume, of course, that the burden of proving you don't have a TV falls on the citizen and not these government-paid contractors.

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