No surprises either that the BBC's scummy revenue generation bullies, TV Licensing, had previously been notified of the elderly lady's passing.
It's a story we hear all too regularly, so bear that in mind when you read TV Licensing's insincere apology and excuses at the foot of this article.
Margaret Doherty, of the Inverclyde town of Gourock, was only a few days after her 105 years when she died at the Alt-Na-Craig Nursing Home on 28th January 2018.
Despite her considerable age, it was understandably a distressing time for Margaret's son Michael Doherty. In the weeks following his mother's death Michael diligently set about notifying all the relevant agencies of her passing, which included TV Licensing.
Michael informed TV Licensing that he wished to cancel the TV licence of his mother's house in the town's Shore Street, which would no longer be occupied.
Three months after his mother's death Michael slammed TV Licensing for sending one of its caustic missives to his mother's now empty home.
The Glasgow Evening Times published an article about Michael's disgust for TV Licensing's heavy-handed methods of enquiry and disrespectful attitude towards his recently bereaved family.
Skip forward a year and TV Licensing has done exactly the same thing by sending a second letter addressed to the late Mrs Doherty to her empty former home, which remains within the family.
The TV Licensing threatogram warned that if a TV licence wasn't obtained for the property heavies from the (mythical) local 'enforcement division' would pay a visit.
The menacing letter continued that Mrs Doherty would be interviewed under caution and could face a fine of £1,000 along with a criminal record.
Michael, 79, who lives in the town's Regent Court, said: "I can't believe they sent the letter the first time when my mum was living in the Alt-Na-Craig home.
"But now they have sent it again and she died a year ago.
"My mum never had a debt in her life.
"She paid all her bills in time.
"It is a disgrace and I want a written apology."
A spokeswoman for TV Licensing tried to justify the organisation's abysmal conduct: "We're sorry for any concern our letters to Mr Doherty's property have caused him.
"When we're notified about vacant properties we stop sending letters for a period of time, but this can only be temporary as we have a duty to collect the licence fee and circumstances may change at the address, such as new occupants moving in.
"We've put a stop on mailings at the address for the time being, and will be contacting Mr Doherty to apologise."
TV Licensing issued virtually the exact same apology a year ago, so it remains to be seen whether it is true to its word on this occasion.
Given TV Licensing's propensity to dishonesty and abysmal customer service, we very much doubt it somehow.
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4 comments:
The BBC approves the wording of all their threatograms. They are designed to intimidate people into handing over cash to keep the BBC gravy-train going. The BBC doesn't care about the distress that these letters cause - if they did they'd use other methods to protect their revenue. I've been in receipt of them for years and can say that they are full of falsehoods and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone LLF.
These people are a disgrace, plain and simple. I wrote to my local MP to complain about the regular disgraceful threatening letters I receive and the 4 visits I've had so far from so called inspectors. As he's an MP I'll name and shame him: It's Nadhim Zahawi.
Zahawi wrote back to me and said he is fully supportive of BBC TVL (no surprise there then) and I quote him "They have every right to check if their customers are telling the truth".
I am not 'a customer' of the BBC. I am not a customer of Tesco either, but they don't threaten me with £1,000 fines, 'interviews under caution' or search warrants to check I'm not shop lifting in any of their stores.
It's also funny that the Civil Aviation Authority and the Police have never contacted me to check if I'm 'telling the truth' about not have a Pilot's licence or a Firearms' licence.
Zahawi: You should hang your head in shame.
The good thing is, Anonymous, you have sent away four BBC Clown-Goons without commission. Eventually they will lose interest in your address. I've not paid the BBC a single penny for well over 20 years and I haven't had a BBC goon on my doorstep for many years now. These clowns only want commission - once they realize there's nothing doing, they'll go away and bother someone else.
Some good news: annual prosecutions for so-called licence fee evasion in Scotland are now in single figures:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-201900001045/
although in my view 4 or 5 convictions per year is still too many!
These figures also explain why the BBC refused to answer a perfectly valid question on the subject in the FOI site WhatDoTheyKnow recently:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/tv_licence_evasion_convictions_i#incoming-1126398
The BBC tried pretend that a fiscal fine is a criminal conviction, when, as I'm sure they know, it's an out of court settlement. Unfortunately for the BBC, the truth has a tendency to out.
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