TV Licensing have bombarded a Lincoln pensioner with over 60 threatening letters demanding payment of a fee he didn't owe.
Despite 66-year-old Graham Rawson's best efforts, it has taken him more than 4 years and countless telephone calls to convince the BBC's menacing TV licence enforcement arm of his correctly licensed status.
Graham has been paying the fee by Direct Debit, but an error on the TV Licensing database meant the organisation's trademark "threatograms" continued to land on his doormat every month.
Graham has been paying the fee by Direct Debit, but an error on the TV Licensing database meant the organisation's trademark "threatograms" continued to land on his doormat every month.
To add substance to their hollow threats the maligned organisation even sent one of their enforcers to exert their own special brand of doorstep intimidation on the bemused former engineering machinist. Obviously looking for a quick and dishonest profit (like Richard Llewellyn et. al.) the TVL knuckle dragger even demanded that Graham handed over his TV.
Speaking to the Lincolnshire Echo, Graham said: "It has made me angry because you hear in the papers about these TV licence dodgers, but I have done nothing wrong.
"It makes you question how many other people have a licence but are being told they haven't. It could be very confusing for the people who are elderly or infirm."
TV Licensing PR spiv Mark Whitehouse tried to defend the organisation's continued unscrupulous tactics.
He said: "According to our records, Mr Rawson's address is correctly licensed. However, he has been receiving letters in error due to a duplicate address on our system. In addition we had an incorrect initial for his first name.
"We have now arranged for the second address to be deleted and have amended the detail of the initial. This means Mr Rawson will no longer receive letters saying he is not licensed.
"Unfortunately, with 25 million licences, errors can sometimes occur. We would urge anyone who is receiving mailings from us when they already have a licence to get in touch with us so we can check out the reasons."
Although as we've heard on countless occasions getting in touch with TV Licensing requires a ouija board at the best of times!
2 comments:
No surprises here given the dreadful record associated with the licensing authorities who seem to be sharing a brain cell between the lot of 'em. Still, one is always shocked at people's willingness to put up with paying for the garbage they are served. Ah, well, its a whacky old world.
"He said: "According to our records, Mr Rawson's address is correctly licensed. However, he has been receiving letters in error due to a duplicate address on our system. In addition we had an incorrect initial for his first name"."
So no actual apology?
Just blame it on a database error.
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