TV Licensing Goon Bale Snapped Again

TV Licensing's Paul Bale, the highest profile skip-licker in Northern Ireland, has been captured on video for a third time.

The effeminate-sounding goon, who has previously demonstrated anger and honesty issues, was filmed a few days ago trying to access the back yard of an unlicensed property. In the video Bale can be heard commenting on the fact that a young child can be seen playing in the secured yard, but that doesn't deter him from rattling on the gate regardless. Also of note is the fact that Bale has decided to snoop around at the rear of the property, instead of taking the conventional front door approach.

In Bale's last video encounter, described in this earlier post, he told a bare-faced lie by denying his employment with TV Licensing. He was also seen to strike out at the occupier's camera and threatened to report him to the police. Given our vocal criticism of his tactics back then, we really hoped that he would have taken up alternative employment by now. The BBC and TV Licensing are fully aware of Bale's actions, but have seemingly decided to ignore them.

Given the increasing number of people filming TV Licensing goon encounters, we feel it's only a matter of time before Bale's next performance on camera.

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TV Licensing Intimidation: Baldy and Beardy Named and Shamed

The above TV Licensing bottom dwellers were rude and aggressive during the execution of two separate search warrants in the Durham/Teesside area back in December 2013.

We can now put confirmed names to both their faces. Baldy goon is called Terry Docherty and Beardy goon is called Burgess Nasr.

Their earlier activities can be seen in these two posts:

Despicable TV Licensing Goons Executing Search Warrant

Hartlepool TV Licensing Search Warrant Goons: Serial Unprofessionalism

Not pretty viewing or reading.

TV Licensing has now decided to proceed against the occupier of the Hartlepool property searched by these two miscreants on 19th December 2013. He has been summoned to attend Teesside Magistrates' Court on obstruction charges at the end of June. As no television receiver was found during the search, it would appear that TV Licensing has very sensibly decided not to pursue any charges of licence fee evasion. Perhaps they didn't want Baldy questioned about why he'd tried to misquote the occupier during the search?

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BBC Asks How To Avoid Licence Fee Prosecution

The writing must really be on the wall for the BBC, with even their own employees seeking advice on how to avoid prosecution for TV licence fee evasion.

It's pretty simple: Stop receiving TV programmes and totally ignore TV Licensing.

In the unlikely event that you still get summoned to court, perhaps because a goon claims to have heard non-existent programmes on your non-existent TV, then please follow the advice in our earlier article.

TV Licensing Bogus Callers

What kind of a depraved individual would be sick enough to pretend to be a TV Licensing goon?

According to press reports, there are currently fake TV Licensing goons prowling the streets of Lincolnshire. These fake goons, just like their BBC contracted counterparts, demand the occupiers hand over cash or face a hefty £1000 fine.

Given their tactics are virtually identical to those used by most legitimate BBC TV Licensing goons, it's hardly surprising that the occupiers of some properties have been coerced into compliance with their deceitful demands.

If someone purporting to be a TV Licensing goon calls, remember the following key steps to protecting your family and home:

• No-one is under any legal obligation to communicate or co-operate with TV Licensing goons. Do not engage in any conversation with them. By far the most effective tactic is to remain silent and close the door immediately.
• BBC TV Licensing goons carry an ID card, which they must show at the start of a visit and on request. A copy of the ID card is shown above. That particular example was found in the personal effects of a recently-deceased honorary goon (as was the full unredacted copy of the TV Licensing Visiting Procedures currently doing the rounds).
• TV Licensing goons have no automatic rights of entry. They must leave the moment the occupier asks them to. If they get aggressive or refuse to leave, then call the police.
• It is perfectly legal, and encouraged, to film all BBC TV Licensing goon encounters in their entirety. Apart from reading out the goon's name in a nice clear voice, spelling it out phonetically if necessary, the occupier is advised to stay silent as the camera rolls.

If you do make the mistake of engaging with a TV Licensing goon, then it could end up costing you a lot more than £145.50.

Keep the door closed and the scumbags out.

TV Licensing Abandons Flawed Prosecution

Last week we were contacted by a lady called Julie, who has been having a few problems with TV Licensing.

Julie told us how she was visited by a female TV Licensing goon on 9th December 2013. The goon informed her that the TV licence, which had always been paid by Direct Debit, had lapsed and consequently her property was unlicensed.

Julie was horrified to end up in such a situation, particularly as her licence payments had always been kept up to date. She explained to the goon that she was sure she was correctly licensed and unwittingly signed the TVL178 Record of Interview (or self-incrimination) form under the misapprehension it was just to confirm the goon had visited. Julie was not in the right frame of mind to argue or ask questions of the goon, as her father was very ill at the time and it was weighing heavily on her mind.

A few days later Julie contacted the bank and discovered that the Direct Debit had been cancelled by mistake. Keen to make amends, she immediately set up a new monthly Direct Debit with TV Licensing and thought that would be the end of the matter.

Skip forward six months and in early May 2014 Julie received a summons for the offence of receiving TV programmes without a valid licence on 9th December 2013. With the summons was a copy of the completed TVL178 form, which incorrectly stated that the goon visited on 9th February 2014. This discrepancy spurred Julie into making contact with us, in the hope we'd be able to tell her that such a procedural oversight automatically rendered the prosecution invalid. Sadly it doesn't, so we couldn't.

We advised Julie to contact TV Licensing's prosecution team directly, highlight the inconsistencies on the TVL178 form and indicate her willingness to challenge it in court.

Not for the first time, the threat of having the inadequacies of their seedy little operation exposed in court persuaded TV Licensing to drop the case.

In terms of their ability as a prosecuting authority, TV Licensing's incompetence is second only to that of the CPS. Their paperwork is often littered with errors, which immediately draws into question the accuracy of anything they tender as evidence.

Anyone accused of TV licence evasion should study TV Licensing's paperwork closely and challenge any inconsistencies that arise. As in this case, TV Licensing would often rather withdraw a prosecution than risk the embarrassment of being discredited in court.

TV Licensing Magistrates Brainwashing Material

As mentioned in our previous post, TV Licensing's PR harlots regularly deliver information sessions to members of the Magistracy.

The author of the influential Justice of the Peace blog has previously commented on this unusual state of affairs, which effectively sees TV Licensing touting for business in the courts: "TV Licensing is but one of many prosecuting bodies which use the Magistrates' Courts system to enforce their regulations. For those unaware, using a TV without a licence is a criminal offence. It is also a criminal offence to be a ticket tout, to ill-treat an animal, or to contravene planning regulations. The organisations responsible for bringing prosecutions on those matters do not send regular information to Magistrates. I question why TV Licensing does so. Is it to inform Magistrates who adjudicate on such cases or to subtly influence them in general? If the latter I can assure them that they have failed totally."

For all TV Licensing reluctantly admits to holding Magistrates' Court indoctrination sessions, they are less forthcoming about the information they actually convey to the Justices on such occasions. Several previous attempts have been made to obtain a full copy of the TV Licensing Court Briefing presentation from the BBC, but all have resulted in only partial disclosure. 

It seems, for whatever reason, that the BBC really doesn't want the public to know what they're telling Magistrates on slide 11 of the presentation.

Unfortunately for them Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service has a more transparent approach when it comes to divulging information aimed at the judiciary.

The full contents of slide 11, which the BBC tries to keep hidden from public view, can be seen in this disclosure document.

In particular note that if you're a first-time evader TV Licensing shouldn't, in theory, prosecute you if you buy a licence immediately when caught.

More BBC Misinformation

Or should that be disinformation?

Having experienced what we shall politely describe as "BBC information irregularities" on several previous occasions (see here, here and here), we really can't work out if they're deliberately evasive or just plain incompetent. In reality, given several recent high profile cases of the BBC being less than transparent, it's probably a combination of both those factors.

Our latest observation is a fairly trivial discrepancy between what the BBC says and what it means, but it serves as yet another example of how they sometimes release information into the public domain without confirming its accuracy. The BBC finds a way to weasel out of more than half of the information requests it receives, so you'd think they'd invest a bit more time ensuring the accuracy of the few responses they do bother to provide.

Back in July 2013 we asked the BBC to provide some information about TV Licensing's attempts to indoctrinate certain members of the Magistracy with their ideas about TV licence law and enforcement.

In response to that request, the BBC told us the following: "We are providing you below with details of the Magistrates Courts which have received a TV Licensing briefing during the financial year 2012/13 - Ballymena, Stafford, Lisburn, Haverfordwest, Merthyr, Omagh, Strabane".

Towards the end of September 2013 Mr Mark Salter, who is clearly a kindred spirit, asked Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunal Service to provide copies of the Magistrates' Court training materials used by TV Licensing. As well as providing a copy of TV Licensing's presentation, they confirmed the following: "Neither Merthyr Tydfil Magistrates Court nor Stafford Magistrates Court received a 'TV Licensing Briefing' during the financial year 2012/13".

It therefore follows that either the BBC or HMCTS is wrong about which courts received TV Licensing brainwashing sessions in the financial years 2012/13. 

We know who our money's on!

Qmee: Get Paid to Search

Today we're taking a step back from our usual crusade against those dastardly villains at TV Licensing to review a new paid to search website, Qmee.

We apologise in advance to any regular readers offended by the off-topic nature of this post, but do hope you'll please bear with us.

Background Information

A few years ago there was a very popular programme called My Search Funds, which effectively paid users to search Yahoo! That may sound a bit strange, giving money away for almost nothing, but the idea of "paid-to-search" is a fairly common form of web arbitrage. The idea was that the user would type their normal search queries into the special My Search Funds toolbar, which generated Yahoo! results as normal, but which paid a small reward for every sponsored result clicked. A user would typically make 2 or 3 pence by clicking on a sponsored result, which isn't much but quickly added up over the space of a month. There was also a referral programme, which incentivised the promotion of their scheme by webmasters. Sadly My Search Funds died a couple of years ago, and there has never really been anything to plug the gap until the launch of Qmee.

What is Qmee?

Qmee is the newest kid on the paid-to-search block. It works in a similar manner to that described earlier, but this time it is rewarding clicks made on selected Google/Amazon/eBay search results.

Typical Qmee Amazon search results.

How Does Qmee Work?

The user installs the special Qmee app, which blends seamlessly into the background of their regular browser. Every time they perform a Google/Amazon/eBay search the app checks for relevant sponsored results, which then appear in a small side window. A reward is earned every time one of these results in clicked. According to Qmee each click can earn anywhere between a few pence and a pound. Our experience, as shown in the image below, is that most clicks generated between 5 and 10 pence. We estimate that regular users of Google/Amazon/eBay could easily make close to £1 a day by using the app. Heavy users will obviously make more, but the key thing is that the searches must be natural. Qmee has measures in place to detect any unusual search activity, which is designed to defraud their advertisers.

Typical Qmee eBay search results.

Payment by Qmee

Qmee has a massive strength over most other paid-to-search programmes in that the user can choose to withdraw their earnings or donate them to charity whenever they like. Qmee sends payment by PayPal almost immediately, so there's no hanging around waiting for the cash to arrive. Better still, as Qmee is aimed at the North American and UK markets, there is the option to receive payment directly in GBP. We've been using Qmee for a few months now and as the image below shows it really does pay:

Qmee is not going to make anyone a fortune, but with regular use it will certainly earn enough for a few refreshing pints or ice creams this summer. 

If you'd like to try Qmee please use our link to tell them we sent you: Try Qmee now.