TV Licensing Pulls Plug on 376,000 Incoming Customer Calls

The TV Licensing Blog can exclusively reveal that TV Licensing pulled the plug on more than 376,000 incoming customer telephone calls since the start of 2020.

Using the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we asked the BBC to provide the following information:

• The number of incoming TV Licensing customer telephone calls abandoned or terminated by TV Licensing before the customer had a chance to speak to an advisor. Please provide this as an annual breakdown for the years 2018, 2019 and 2020 to date.

In its response to our request, the BBC (their ref RFI202001590) provided the following information:

• In 2018, TV Licensing received 8,230,318 incoming customer telephone calls. It abandoned or terminated 108,759 of those calls before the customer spoke to an advisor.
• In 2019, TV Licensing received 8,293,072 incoming customer telephone calls. It abandoned or terminated 77,649 of those calls before the customer spoke to an advisor.
• In 2020 (to 30th September), TV Licensing received 6,951,453 incoming customer telephone calls. It abandoned or terminated 376,459 of those calls before the customer spoke to an advisor.

As is customarily the case in its response to information requests, the BBC tried to justify TV Licensing's abysmal level of service. You can read the BBC's blather in the linked response document.

Suffice to say, we do not consider the coronavirus outbreak any excuse at all, as TV Licensing call centre staff can just as easily ply their immoral trade from the safety and splendid isolation of their homes.

At the end of October TV Licensing was accused of trying to deliberately frustrate TV licence cancellation requests by leaving customers hanging on the telephone line and never answering. They also redirected customers from the cancellation page of the TV Licensing website towards the telephone helpline that went unanswered.

We recommend anyone wishing to cancel their TV licence does so by sending them an email and cancelling any Direct Debit at the bank. No further action is necessary, unless they wish to run the gauntlet of trying to claim a refund.

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