TV Licensing: We Said We'd Call

Greedy TV Licensing goons are dishonestly trying to up their commission payments by writing persuasive comments on the "We Said We'd Call" (WSWC) cards they leave at unlicensed properties.

Earlier this evening we were contacted by the Active Resistance to the TV Licence Facebook group, who told us about a TV Licensing goon in the Oldham area adding extra "words of encouragement" to his cards. TV Licensing rules are quite clear that goons are not to add any extra comments to the cards, but we know many goons routinely flout this.

The goon, who has the Visiting Party Number (VPN) 9507, delivered the WSWC shown in the image above to a correctly unlicensed property in the Shaw area of the town at 3:57 pm today.

Chapter 3 section 5.0 of the TV Licensing Visiting Procedures states the following: "If premises appear occupied but no answer is obtained at the time of the visit, a calling card should normally be left. The EO must record the address and postcode, time and date of visit and their VPN in the appropriate boxes on the calling card. No other marks or comments should be made on the calling card." Their emphasis.

As the rationale and significance of this rule might not be immediately obvious, we shall explain in a bit more detail.

TV Licensing goons earn a pittance and rely very heavily on selling TV licences to make commission. As a consequence of this financial incentive many goons adopt hard selling tactics and aren't really bothered if the occupier needs a TV licence or not. A proportion of TV licence sales are generated as a result of an occupier contacting TV Licensing after receiving a WSWC card. These sales are credited to the goon in question, which is why they have to annotate the card with their VPN. Any action on the part of the goon that "encourages" an occupier to buy a TV licence upon receipt of a WSWC card is frowned upon, which is why goons are forbidden from adding extra comments.

By adding the words "Confirmed TV Set" at the top of the WSWC card shown above, TV Licensing goon 9507 is making a subtle psychological attempt to coerce licence-fee payment from the occupier of the correctly unlicensed property. Goon 9507 is clearly trying to make the occupier think that TV Licensing has evidence of unlicensed TV reception, which they cannot possibly have, in the hope that the occupier rushes out and buys a TV licence in panic.

It's a pretty low and dishonest tactic, which is well befitting of most TV Licensing goons.

TV Licensing and BBC bosses will probably have read this post by about 8:05 am tomorrow and we'd like to think they'd discipline the goon in question. 

Sadly they possess the same wayward moral compass as their low-life cannon fodder, so will probably do nothing at all.

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