Is this a TV detector van outside my house..??

[seasprout]

Weird.

Looks like the man from the local council.

Expect your council tax to go up next year. It's the double glazing and swimming pool that's done it for you.

Bugger, I knew that pool was over the top.

It was odd though. It was outside for about an hour. Then gone.

I think it was the men in black, the people over the road with their mini motos are obviously beamed down from the mother ship.

Unless it was some sort of extreme high tech Ice cream selling experience....?!

[Farmer_Gyles]

the detector vans can't detect what rooms your TVs are in etc
what happens is they have TVs inside the vans - they wait till dark and (through the blacked out windows in the van) watch your windows for the flickering caused by picture changes on your telly - thats how they can tell which room your TV is in
they flick through TV channels till the flickering they see matches the flickering in that room
then they know what you were watching
it's not rocket science!!

[Two_Sheds]

for years I battled with T.V. licensing because no matter what I did they refused to believe that we could possibly live without the death-ray in the corner.

Yes, I had this battle too. Letter after nasty letter, which I would send back marked I DON'T HAVE A TV in red pen
then one day they sent someone round to my flat (I was out) and left a nasty letter saying basically WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, AND WE'LL BE BACK.

I rang them up, invited them round to view my flat and they refused, on the grounds that if I knew when they were coming I could hide the TV.

"but I don't have a TV to hide" I said. "and if you come round when I'm not expecting you, I won't be in."

They gave up eventually.
----------

Oh, and when I shared a flat, we had one TV and one license, for Ivy House, 3 Market Lane.
However, the muppets at TV Licensing would still send out a threatening letter to "Ivy House". I phoned, emailed and wrote real letters saying that 3 Market Lane is the same building as Ivy House. I even sent photos showing the outside of the building and sent them a copy of Royal Mail's records for the building, but they wouldn't have it. They insisted it was two different addresses.

[kerryp]

tv licence detecor vans are marked... ive seen them driving round. they dont hide...

[Hilary B]

"I haven't got a TV is no longer enough. You can watch TV on any internet-linked computer, so you will need a licence anyway, even if you have no wish to use the internet for that purpose. Just having the option means you need a licence......
You CAN use a TV carefully adapted to do nothing but play pre-recorded (and purchased, unless made by your own camcorder) videos or DVDs but if you have 'equipment capable of use for watching Television programs', that is it!

[Pumpkin Becki]

Every three months we get a snotty demand letter from TV Licencing for the new build. Each time we tell them that it is still an unoccupied building site with no TV equipment in it, and every time they tell us 'okay, we'll send you another one in three months'. Last time they obviously didn't log the call on their system, because we got an even snottier letter from their local debt collection office basically saying 'we're on our way, you can't escape us'. So, being dilligent, we rang the main number again and they said 'oh you can ignore that letter because it wasn't personally addressed to you'.

My OH and I were lost for words - surely a debt collection agent doesn't care if they've got a name or not so long as they get their money. Needless to say, we insisted they advised their local office not to come and lynch us!!

[bluemoon]

"I haven't got a TV is no longer enough. You can watch TV on any internet-linked computer, so you will need a licence anyway,

At the time we didn't have a computer either, internet linked or otherwise, number 2 son brought that with him too and basically dragged us kicking and screaming into the 21st century.