peetee wrote: 1 Mar 2023, 9:12am
I’m in agreement with you. What grinds my gears is the tone and frequency of the mail shots. I object to receiving, every month, mail that visibly implies I am in debt, breaking the law and likely to be summonsed to court. Such is their ferocity that I feel obliged to open them to see if they have legitimately arranged a visit through the courts.
I have a wood burning stove. Perhaps the Environment Agency would like to send me letters implying I am a criminal that is likely to burn waste containing toxic material.
I have a good relationship with our postman and felt pushed to explain what the letters were.
“Oh, don’t worry” he said “I get plenty of them to deliver. They even send them to me so I know how it works”
I shouldn’t have to feel that way.
Assuming you are certain that you have no requirement for a TVL, would it make you feel any better if you were able to "grind their gears" ?
At the operational level, I doubt they could care less. I fancy it's a computerised system including a call centre set up, driven by cost-effectiveness. A big part of this has always been bluff.
With the caveat that it might be easy to get yourself into a state, you might try a campaign of complaints through eg your MP and the various toothless watchdoggies/omsbuddies. The key here is to try to ensure that your complaints don't just generate a standard fob-off. Your MP may be pro or anti BBC or couldn't care less but they should take up your concerns as a constituent. In particular, I'd make it clear that you would like any replies to be through your MP or at least their constituency office. You certainly don't want somebody from Crapita etc., ringing you up.
One of the things which seems to come up is withdrawing the implied right of access by which they can knock on your door. There's even an acronym WOIRA. That's the sort of thing I'd ask my MP to forward on my behalf on the basis that I didn't trust the BBC's representatives.
One of the things that irritates me is the amount of advertising on the BBC from the likes of BoatyMcBoatface plugging "our BBC" when it's really about BBC pensions etc. I have a TVL, so it's something I feel entitled to dislike.
In the lingo, the TVL is a legacy system whose days are surely numbered. The sprawling management at the BBC didn't anticipate how quickly support for the licence fee funding model would collapse through a combination of subscription services and scandals.
