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Please do not write below the line

bbctvlicence.com

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Re: Please do not write below the line

#101

Post by Retr0id »

DrillShopper wrote: post #88
Retr0id wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a UK resident and TV owner (who does not need a license), I wouldn't even mind that much if I was required to pay just for TV ownership. It's the "enforcement" system that's utterly broken (although I have no idea how it compares to other countries). We have this ridiculous situation where I'm not required to pay (so I don't), yet the TV licensing people are allowed (required?) to send me junk mail week after week…

What is the reason that you don't have to pay?

I don't watch broadcast TV or other such TV-license-related services. My TV is a glorified computer monitor slash media player.

Re: Please do not write below the line

#102

Post by cal85 »

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #61

The most baffling thing here is how the hell did the author get the organisation to respond , on topic, multiple times? In my experience conversing with various entities that are supposed to provide customer support, absolutely anything outside of an extremely narrow set of vetted topics with prepared answers and especially anything technical gets ignored and receives an irrelevant response at best.

On-topic? Every reply seemed evasive to me.

(Regarding how he got them to reply at all, this is required by law of public authorities.)

Re: Please do not write below the line

#103

Post by jimnotgym »

hggigg wrote: post #37

Please don't get me started on these guys. I don't own a television and don't want one (it's a waste of life). I get sent letters all the time. Last year I had an "inspector" turn up who was told to "fuck off", managed to gain entry to the apartment block and then came and knocked on my internal door and refused to show ID, clearly because he was an intimidating arsehole and didn't want to be called on it. He was tol…

Just reminded me of how they used to get into University accommodation and try and catch people in every room

Re: Please do not write below the line

#104

Post by eastbound »

alvarlagerlof wrote: post #32
Zak wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many European countries are worse about it than the UK; even people who do not own a television are required by law to pay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence

In Sweden there was this whole thing where you apparently had to pay even if you only owned a laptop.

In France you pay the copyright infringement tax on every hard drive / SSD / storage you purchase. But it’s still forbidden to pirate movies.

Re: Please do not write below the line

#106

Post by Ellipsis753 »

gs17 wrote: post #72
busterarm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the UK is the only country with a license ridiculous enough to offer you a 50% discount _if you're blind_.

It sounds weirder than that to me: > colour TV: £169.50 per year; monochrome TV: £57.00 per year; blind people: 50% discount People who can't see their color TV at all pay more than people who can but have an old black-and-white one?

Weirder still, the discounts stack! So blind people can benefit from buying a black-and-white TV for an additional discount.

I've given this a lot of thought in the past. The best I could come up with is that "legally blind" could still allow for someone with _very poor_ (colour) vision...

Re: Please do not write below the line

#107

Post by coliveira »

crazygringo wrote: post #71

I was really hoping for an answer at the end! I'm actually totally stumped by the whole thing. OCR doesn't even make sense, because OCR is terrible at handwriting generally. With forms they usually require you to write block letters and numbers inside of a kind of separate grid for each field. And maybe fill in some bubbles too. Anything anywhere on the page outside of the form fields is ignored. I'd find it far more…

> OCR is terrible at handwriting generally

That is true, but OCR is nonetheless used in many situations like this, for example at the postal office (the US postal office started doing this in 1965). Even if they can recognize only a fraction of the letters, it is a huge savings in terms of processing costs. The remaining will be handled manually anyway.

Re: Please do not write below the line

#108

Post by donatj »

duxup wrote: post #95

I worked for an old company that had a lot of old processes and paperwork. Many bits of paperwork had a "do not write below the line" type areas. I always wrote something ... nothing ever happened. I once hand delivered some paperwork (I was running late) to HR rather than using the inter office mail service. I asked them about it, they told me "Oh you must be Mathew..." I was HR famous. They didn't actually mind, th…

In a similar vein, I put an ill fitting jacket on a coat rack when I started my current job in 2012. We have moved offices twice, and the coat rack and jacket have followed me across both moves at no effort of my own.

We've been working remote now since the beginning of covid, but our office is still open for anyone who wants to use it. I visited earlier this summer and my jacket was gone. I asked our office assistant about it and she had apparently just recently moved it to a lost and found box, noting that it had been there as long as she had.

I told her the story about how the coat had followed me across two offices and twelve years. She seemed unentertained and asked me not to put it back. It's been moved to my desk for the time being.

Re: Please do not write below the line

#109

Post by qingcharles »

Nition wrote: post #55
dijit wrote: post #8

Likeliest situation is all their stationary destined for send outs have the line; and in situations where the line serves no purpose it does no harm to leave it: so there is little use in having additional process around completely blank stock.

They could have told him that though if it's the case, and the mystery would be solved. But there obviously wasn't any desire (or more charitably - time) on their end to really look into the reasoning or even understand the question. ---- Edit: I will share what I think is a nice a little counterpoint story here, from a business that is clearly still interested in understanding. I sent Lego an email a while ago: I'm…

That's wild to get a real response like that. Bravo to Lego.

I offered to provide some expert help on a set they were designing once and they immediately put me in direct contact with the designer in Billund. No bureaucracy.

Why can't more companies be this good? I've been trying for years to get into one Google account of mine :(

Re: Please do not write below the line

#110

Post by Retr0id »

immibis wrote: post #84
notatoad wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that seems fine to me. whatever they want to call it, if it applies to everybody it's just a tax and they're using tax dollars to fund some TV content and/or infrastrcture. that's all totally normal. the absurd part is restricting that tax to only people who watch TV, and trying to do surveillance and enforcement to determine whether or not somebody is eligible for a TV tax.

Well, first they wanted to tax everyone a bit to pay for the BBC. And then someone said that would let the government easily pressure the BBC by withholding funds. And then someone said let's let the BBC collect it's own tax then. And someone else said that would be illegal to make people pay for the BBC if they aren't actually receiving any services from the BBC. And so here we are. So they wrote in this provision t…

This isn't accurate, that's just what they want people to think. In practice it exempts most people below the age of about 30, most of whom do not consume any media within the scope of the TV license.

> the law is written so you have to pay if you could receive one.

That's not true. You're allowed to own equipment capable of receiving licensed broadcasts, all that matters is that you don't.

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