TV Licensing has been ordered to pay a man £5,000 for continuing to send him accusatory claptrap despite being told not to.
Author Martin Geddes is one of growing army of law-abiding folk needlessly harangued on a monthly basis for the heinous crime of not legally requiring a TV licence.
On the concept of television, he says: "I find the medium unbearable. It plays no part in my life, other than to take hostage friends and family and brainwash them into submission to collectivist ideology."
As for tuning into the BBC, he adds: "I would need to wear a hazmat suit, and be paid handsomely on a per minute basis, including danger money and psychic decontamination fees."
In common with our reader Phil, Martin decided that if TV Licensing was going to continue sending its noxious correspondence, despite having been told not to, then he would invoice it for the time, effort and expertise spent processing its letters.
On 25th September 2022, having just received yet another TV Licensing missive, Martin wrote to TV Licensing asking it to cease and desist sending letters to his property. He also informed it that a fee would be charged in relation to every other piece of correspondence TV Licensing sent to him for processing.
Just as you'd expect from an organisation as bumptious and arrogant as TV Licensing, it totally disregarded Martin's instructions and continued to send correspondence anyway.
On 2nd November 2022 Martin wrote to TV Licensing including an invoice for £3,000 in "professional correspondence" fees. He told the organisation: "There will be a small claims court case to recover this debt if unpaid. We have a valid contract, albeit an unusual one, and you have no good reason to contest this in court. If you don't want to pay for my commercial service, then please don't use it any further! It is that simple."
Martin concluded the letter: "For the avoidance of doubt, unsolicited correspondence about our contract itself also falls under our contract for unwanted correspondence. I have a 100% detection rate for unwanted correspondence from TV Licensing. So the best option is just to pay now to avoid further investigations, visits, or costly court action."
On 15th December 2022 Martin submitted a claim against TV Licensing at the County Court, using HMCTS's Money Claim Online system. The claim, which cost £205 to make, sought the £3,000 in unpaid professional correspondence fees, plus an additional £2,000 for trespass against the person.
True to form for an organisation as bumptious and arrogant as TV Licensing, the claim went ignored. The County Court therefore made a default judgment in Martin's favour on 27th January 2023, ordering TV Licensing to make full payment of the £5,000 sought and the associated claim costs.
On 15th February 2023 Capita Business Services, the TV Licensing operations contractor acting on behalf of the BBC, made an application to the County Court to have the default judgment set aside on that basis that it "did not receive the claim form prior to the default judgment being made and have still not received the claim form to this day".
"Had the claim form been received, we would have replied immediately with a robust defence", it added.
TV Licensing rejected the idea that it had entered into a contract with Martin, even though it was told quite clearly that its continued correspondence would denote acceptance of such.
We are aware of several previous cases where TV Licensing has mysteriously "lost" court paperwork when a judgment has gone against them. It would appear that they are very unfortunate in that regard.
A County Court hearing has now been scheduled to resolve the matter. We will bring you further updates as and when we can.
You can read Martin's full story on his electronic newsletter.
The TV Licensing Blog wishes Martin the very best in his endeavours to hold TV Licensing to account. If you would like to show your support by buying him a coffee, you can do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/martingeddes
5 comments:
Hats off to you Martin! Well done. I'm glad this got published. No doubt inspiring. I see a rise of The People across the Globe. #Bravery. It's contagious
Hoooooooo🐸
If Martin can provide an email address I will provide him with the details of my claim against TVL/CBS in case this is useful to him.
I keep getting these threatening letters from them and want to respond but don't know how
This is a common tactic by unscrupulous organisations who refuse to respond to small claims for the simple reason that they cannot get their legal costs back. The small claims court won't allow it. They then make a statutory declaration knowing that the court never investigates the matter. All statutory declarations are taken as truth, even though in most cases they are outright lies.
The BBC's strategy now will be to have the matter heard in the county court, where Martin will be exposed to costs. The problem he has, and the BBC lawyers know this, is that no trespass to the person claim can be brought in small claims. Further to this, I struggle to see what the trespass is. Harassment, yes. But that is not trespass to the person. In any event, harassment won't be heard in the small claims court either.
He would have been better off arguing against the statutory declaration. I wish him the best of luck though.
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