Hacker News Reader

Comment by agurk | Hacker News Reader

I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn't have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory.

They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn't have a licence you'd be caught. I did some research at the time, and it seemed that evidence from a detector van had never been submitted as evidence in court cases for those without a licence.

It didn't take long to realise in the age of databases, it's easier just to send out scary letters to all address without a registered licence and hope there will be some 'conversion rate'. The effort required to actually chase on this seemed disproportional to the benefits.

And for those wondering, I did have a licence, it's just the address the BBC had for the flat was subtly different to the one on the bit of paper. I had hoped that they would follow up with a more detailed investigation, so I could see how it worked and ask about the vans, but they never did.

View on HN

The ads were hugely dystopian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw

I am an ex-pat and as an adult I am have become quite disillusioned with the UK and glad to have gotten out a decade ago. I miss nothing about England except my friends, and I'd feel sorry for them, but they all seem mostly happy with life.

Paying a license to have a TV (and it's assumed you must watch TV), opt in porn on the internet, CCTV everywhere, braying in parliament, not to mention the whole Brexit shit-show, I find little to admire about the UK.

You don't have to pay for a license for a TV, you just tell them you don't watch live broadcast/streaming and they send a letter every free years.

All years are free if you don't pay for a license for a TV ;)

I don't know where you moved to, but is the US anything admirable lately? Guess I should cross the UK off the list of places to flee to.

Don't flee, get involved and help fix things if you can!

Yes, he should just dedicate his life to toiling away at a problem he can't make an impact on while telling his kids and wife that he's very sorry that he can't give them a significantly better standard of living because he needs to help fix England.

No, I was miserable in the UK - I have better options elsewhere. I do not care enough about the UK to give it my life. The culture is locked in by hundreds of years of history, and a vast, vast majority of people like it the way it is.

Staying in the UK for me is like staying in an abusive relationship or a job you hate. It made me deeply unhappy, so instead of complaining and bringing my friends down I found a life to love overseas.

Fair enough. All any of us wants is happiness.

I was just thinking about the grass isn't always greener kind of situation. Everyone hopes somewhere else is going to (have to?) be better than here. Where ever there/here actually are.

Absolutely right but moving to Australia has genuinely massively improved our standard of living beyond what i thought was even possible. I can't believe how good we have it here.

I almost didn't leave when I visited Australia and New Zealand. I telecommute, so it wouldn't matter if I was across the country or the planet. Plus, getting paid in US dollars living in NZ with the strong dollar would be like a pay raise. If only I had the 'get up and do it' enough to do it.

I work from home 25 days per month - I moved well away from the city, bought a massive house next to a beautiful surf beach and my kids could not be having a better time if they tried. My partner did the same. We make over 400k joint, all from home and in a very cheap part of the country. I can't even get over how lucky I am.

I moved to NZ. Glad to get out of UK's weather and rat race.

Went to Hawaii for couple weeks one year ago. Experienced culture shock.

NZ is probably best place in the world.

Care to elaborate on that? Culture shock from what? What makes NZ the best?

If you're progressive then NZ is a good place with strong social support and networks. There's definitely plenty of faults but it's not nearly as bad as other countries in most cases.

There's also not the extreme rifts that we see elsewhere. If you look at reform for instance then there was broad cross party support for firearm reform, abortion reform, and euthanasia reform all in the last few months with both left and right parties voting for all of the above, something which would be pretty inconceivable in a country like the US where people seem to take opposite views on things just because they refuse to agree with the other side.

The population is largely free of extremists and have a culture of just getting on with things and working together, this comes from the extreme isolation which we've historically had. That leads to people being irreligious, educated, and practical.

It's very democratic and has very low levels of corruption, politicians are accessible and mostly trusted.

This is tempered by a high cost of living compared to wages.

Unfortunately we have seen a rise of US style far-right opinions and extreme views fed from the internet (like antivax and also a rise of disinformation and fake news). Ironically this may mean that politicians will be forced to become less accessible and democracy and freedoms may take a back seat to security as we've seen in the US. I hope not.

> irreligious, educated, and practical.

This is so true. People are just so multi-faceted here. I have a friend who's a developer, mechanic, investor, guitar player and a stripper.

Culture shock from drugs, homeless, guns and just this extreme lifestyle. Difficult to explain. We arrived from one island of paradise to other and sure, climate is better in Hawaii, but big cities, big trucks, big corp...

And then there was other side of anit-vax, anti-gmo, anti-progress people... We've got some of that in NZ, but nowhere close so visible.

> NZ is probably best place in the world.

Unless you're a woman of reproductive age.

A certain glass ceiling was nicely shattered by Ardern, NZ's PM. She's boosting NZ's respect abroad even further, if that was possible.

And she is working to improve NZ women's access to reproductive rights, but they're still well behind what should be expected of a civilized country.

Why is that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraceptive_rights_in_New_Ze... and specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_New_Zealand

The abortion laws are old and antiquated (from the 60s), basically a woman needs a doctors permission to get an abortion, in reality this isn't a problem with most doctors but it is demeaning.

There's a new law which just passed the first reading in parliament (with 80% voting yes) to remove any restrictions so thankfully this will no longer be an issue and a woman will be able to make the decision without having to go to a doctor.

So, while the laws are old it's actually positive that there's so much cross party support for progressive reform. Another law which is in it's second reading is euthanasia reform which has similar support.

Why is that?

> NZ is probably best place in the world.

Unless you, say, like to travel, or want to live in a place with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

> want to live in a place with people from a wide variety of backgrounds

Our largest city is also our most diverse.

> Auckland is one of the world's most culturally diverse cities with the fourth most foreign-born population, an international study has found. > With 39 per cent of its population born overseas, the city is revealed to be more diverse than Sydney, Los Angeles, London and even New York.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...

It's hard to define a good measure of diversity. Thankfully statisticians provide some options:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_index

For some reason, the article you linked made up their own (very poor) measure of diversity. Imagine a city that's half white locals, and half white British immigrants (temporary or permanent). Would you consider such a city as diverse? The measure in that news article would put this city as being 50% diverse, even higher than Wellington's 39%.

(Grew up in Auckland, live in London.) IMO it takes some pretty incredible redefinitions of the word "diverse" to get Auckland to be more diverse than London.

NZ's pretty diverse. South Island less so as it's mostly rural.

Depends where you want to travel to, Australia, South East Asia, the west coast of the Americas, and the Pacific islands are all very accessible. There's also plenty of travel to do within New Zealand, because New Zealand runs north to south and is roughly the height of Europe there's a huge variety within a small space.

Also, NZ is pretty diverse. I work in Wellington and my team of 20 is from nine different countries and ethnicities, there's only four born Kiwi's in it (and the Kiwi's have different ethnicities as well some are Maori, others are Pakeha, and others are Indian Kiwis). I read about immigration statistics the other day and 8 of the top ten ethnicities which are granted permanent residents status are from Asia, the Pacific, and Africa, only two are from countries with a European majority (the UK and the US). I find Wellington to be more diverse than when I worked in San Francisco or London.

Last year we moved to place a bit outside city. Previously, waking up on weekends meant planning a hike somewhere. Now we are just like "hey it's pretty nice just to chill here, lets just stay home". Sure, travel is more about discovering something new, but from beauty side, it sometimes even annoys me how pretty NZ is.

Culture wise, I keep saying NZ is like 50s in US - tons of new expats, everyone with decent background, keen to work hard. Most of Europe and US has now second generation foreigners which is not that interesting. Simple number: software teams I worked on only had 10-30% of kiwi's.

Isn't NZ part of the five eyes?

It is; and they railroaded Kim Dotcom, breaking all their laws on due process, just to lick those sweet, sweet US boots.

As a Kiwi Expat, I beg to differ. Australia takes that title.

Better incomes, quality of living (houses are vastly better quality), infrastructure, entertainment, and weather.

Better salary and better entertainment. I gain first one by working remote, second don't care that much.

The downsides is extreme weather, too big cities and much less nice people (historical backgrounds between kiwis and aussies are polar opposites).

Germany, Switzerland and Austria are competing for that title. (And there are official numbers backing that up). You get what you pay for.

> is the US anything admirable lately?

Nope, the US is firmly in the Wants a Prize for Basic Decency[0] category. Which is better than most other places, but that says more about other places than the US.

0: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WantsAPrizeForBa...

Where did you move to?

Canada

Here in Canada we all get taxed for CBC, including people with no TV or radio.

This is true.

What I have found with ex-pats is they left somewhere and feel free to criticise it and give these as reasons they are glad they left. They also ignore similar issues in their new nation or ignore other aspects of their new nation. Arguing that they are not responsible for that as an ex-pat.

Not labelling all expats like this but the vocal ones tend to be like this.

I don't begrudge the TV licence too much. I used to, and then I moved to Ireland - where I pay a roughly equivalent amount for a roughly equivalent licence, which funds RTÉ (and tg4? unclear) with nowhere near the same results. And still ads.

It turns out the better half of Europe has TV licences in one form or another - but for some reason, we never hear about them. When the UK has to fund a state broadcaster, it's dystopian. When everyone else does it, it's business as usual.

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence )

The enforcement actions and publicizing of the license in the UK seem to be the most dystopian, in Ireland it's a bit over the top as well

But you're right, it is present in multiple countries, I think Germany and France just turned it into a household fee

I think there’s talk of moving to a household fee here too. Oddly, making it universal seems to be more acceptable than a consumption tax. On one hand, I can see the plus sides - there’s a lot more ways to consume national broadcasters now, and it seems strange that I should pay to receive the national broadcaster on my TV, but if I scrapped the TV and watched it on my laptop, I wouldn’t (I know the UK complicates that further than we do).

On the hand, it feels unintuitive that there’s now no way to opt out. But I’m not sure how we delineate universal taxes (eg, my taxes pay for schools but I don’t use them) vs consumption taxes (I don’t pay road tax because I don’t drive). We still ultimately need to pay for them somehow - I don’t drive, but I still depend on roads.

IIRC (and this was dear to my heart in the UK as a non-motor-vehicle-driving taxpayer), road tax isn't a thing. There's vehicle excise duty, but that's not earmarked for roads (since 1937, according to https://ipayroadtax.com/no-such-thing-as-road-tax/bring-back...).

Also: "The maintenance and improvement of these roads are funded through local council taxes, fees, and central government grants." - https://www.loc.gov/law/help/infrastructure-funding/englanda...

So rest assured that if you pay tax in the UK, you pay for roads along with other infrastructure and services.

And now for something completely different... I recall being told, by a man who knocked on my door in a college residence, that the van had detected my television. I had no television set. He asked to come in and look. I declined and he went away. Either enforcement by deception, or a creep using a pretext to get into womens' college rooms. Either way, bad!

I do miss the BBC website without ads and BBC iPlayer though. We had a television in later years (and a license).

In Italy it has been merged into electricity bills. I kid you not. And of course, the state broadcaster (RAI) is still chock-full of ads on all its channels. This is because it's not a media organisation as much as a cash-machine for aides and cronies of the government du-jour, with each channel literally allocated informally to each major party. You can imagine the average production quality.

Turkey does the electricity bill thing too.

Same for RTS in Serbia, worse even because not only do we HAVE to pay the TV license via power bill, or get sued and have power cut off (I kid you not, because of the TV license fee!) (happened to me), RTS also has 8 commercial channels that are funded from the public's money, which are only available on select cable networks.

It's RTS 1, RTS 2, RTS 3, RTS HD (which is redundant since the 3 channels are already in Full HD), and then RTS 24/7, RTS Drama, RTS Archive, RTS Music, RTS Life, RTS Kids, RTS Music 2, RTS VOD and RTS SVOD, RTS [something I can't translate] (all names are translated from Serbian).

The TV service is the only one with HD terrestrial broadcasting, and yet it's production quality is absolute garbage (I mean literally, the video quality is absolutely terrible, I'm not even talking about the topics they deal with).

Basically, a money sink and waste of time. People who have SBB (United Group) watch N1 (CNN affiliate) in Full HD (with 30 Mbps bitrate, compared to 4 Mbps for RTS 1 HD).

People who don't have SBB cable, are stuck with the low level garbage channels from our state broadcaster.

"enforcement" consists of them sending you nasty letters, then after after 6 months knocking on the door and asking "sir do you own a television set"

to which my response was "sod off", and they did

repeat again every 5 years

It does get escalated sometimes https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/24/in-court-non...

the only way of that happening is if they happen to observe you being naughty (i.e. live TV through the window when they call), or you admit to being naughty when they ask their questions

as someone who hasn't watched broadcast TV in years (or iplayer): I'm not worried

Ah yes I wouldn't worry if I didn't have a TV.

The rest of Europe has always looked at the BBC as a model (if not THE model) of public-service broadcasting. I honestly don't understand why it's so controversial inside Britain - or rather I do, and it's not a pretty sight (the criticism comes from people with other interests in manipulating public discourse through the media, like a certain infamous Australian and his tabloid pals).

The real cancer of UK society is the tabloid press, now mutating into socialmedia-powered viral linkfarms. The BBC is absolutely fine.

What's dystopian is not the tv license, is their style of public communication. In general public communication in the UK feels sometimes very direct and almost threatening. The sense of authority and hierarchy implied is palpable. Not for nothing the UK is source of some wonderful parodies on the theme: for example the Scarfolk series:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/digging-through-the-ar...

Or one of my favourite Monthy Python sketches:

"How not to be seen": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGv8oAHxekU

Or the anti-piracy ad from the IT crowd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPEeaxI0OPU

>> It turns out the better half of Europe has TV licences in one form or another - but for some reason, we never hear about them.

It's probably because in the rest of Europe national broadcasters don't badger you to pay a license even if you don't actually own a TV set.

In the UK, I get threatening red-lettered envelopes every few years- because it's easier to harass me by mail than to try and figure out whether I watch TV or not.

And the threat is quite real. The broadcaster can send people to your house to snoop around, to see if you have a TV set or not. These agents are known to take liberties with the extend of their power (they will allege that they can enter your property whether you agree to let them in, or not) and there is basically nothing stopping them from stating that you are watching a TV programme as it is being broadcast if you have have equipment capable of doing so, such as a computer, or just a smartphone.

Basically, the TV licensing people in the UK are convinced that, if you say that you do not watch TV you are lying, and they treat you as an offender by default.

Does any of this happen in any other European country?

In my country (Italy) we kept receiving threatening letters as well as random phone calls, sometimes even attempted inspections although unless they came with the police and a warrant you simply wouldn't let them in. Some context: the original law declared the tax was due for state owned TV reception, so when in the late 70s to 80s private owned TV stations boomed, some people modified their TV sets so that the state TV could not be received. Problem solved? Nope! the government promptly modified the tax into a more general tax. The text is so vague that it could be applied to cellphones and computers too, although they always told that's not the case, but the vague text remains. Anyways, letters, phonecalls and random visits went on for decades, then a few years back a genius politician solved the problem by integrating the TV tax within the electricity bill. If you don't own a TV set (and know your rights) you can still declare that and get the amount cut from the bill, but that will ensure an inspection will follow.

Thanks. In Greece also (where I'm originally from) the TV tax is rolled in to the electricity bill and you can opt out. I haven't heard of any inspections but that's because nothing works in the Greek public sector. Or anywhere in the whole country.

Are you arguing that because other countries do the same observing the UK has a totalitarian approach to TV licensing is a non-issue?

Also, my point was the advertising specifically, and attitude generally was dystopic, a la 1984. I am unaware of any other countries injecting that kind of narrative into their culture.

I hardly ever watch broadcast TV, but I don't mind paying the licence fee for the BBC website and radio stations.

There are plenty of things to dislike about the UK, but that seems like an odd list of things to highlight.

The porn opt-in thing has been pushed back for a year or two and will be quietly shelved when it's realised it's unworkable.

The supposedly omnipresent CCTV invariably seems to have been lost or turned off if you actually need to figure out e.g. who has nicked your bike.

I will grant you the Brexit shit-show, however; that is genuinely horrific.

> The porn opt-in thing has been pushed back for a year or two and will be quietly shelved when it's realised it's unworkable.

Actually it's 'indefinitely postponed now, after it was realised about the end of June that it was a violation of EU law (also, it was May's baby, and she's gone, Boris is a pro-porn kinda guy).

There's plenty to complain about re: the UK, but none of what you're complaining about is unique to the UK, or even uncommon (except for opt-in porn, that one's odd)

Most other countries with public broadcasting just roll the "TV license" into your taxes. CCTV everywhere (that the government can afford to put it) is commonplace in most countries (the USA being something of an exception).

Politicians acting like children is standard. In fact, I'd say that it's a desired feature of the Westminster System. Question Time/PMQs, although sometimes childish, serve an important role in the democratic process and open government. At least filibusters aren't commonplace, unlike in the USA.

I think this argument is a form of logical fallacy. I'd complain about any country that equated to the UK in some way. No country is perfect, some appeal to me more than others, countries like the UK do not and their implementation of governance conflicts with my principles.

> evidence from a detector van had never been submitted

How could it be, if the mechanism behind the detector is not made public?

Prosecutor: This machine says you are guilty.

Defendant: How does that machine work?

Prosecutor: You aren't allowed to know.

Defendant: ???

Judge: Case dismissed.

Not the US.

yup even brushing your teeth and using mouthwash is not a stymie, often this is viewed as destruction/interference with evidence, if a cop can discover empty aloholic containers.

Brushing your teeth doesn't affect breathalyzer readings at all. Alcoholic mouthwash can give false positives for up to 20 minutes, and cops are supposed to wait and try again for that reason; you've got a good shot at getting it thrown out if they don't.

around my parts, it would be tampering with evidence even if there is no proof or indicator that evidence of a crime existed, before "tampering" the brushing teeth and mouthwash is simply part of a power commuters hygene routine. in NY for example people use the time spent at traffic lights to do all sorts of things.

That's fucked up, I'm sorry. In most places in the US, cops would ignore it, because it doesn't do anything. Breathalyzers detect metabolized alcohol vapor from your lungs; nothing you can put in your mouth will stop that as long as there's alcohol in your bloodstream and you're still breathing.

oh dont be sorry its not your fault and interjections are valid, just to get things on track with the thread, this is about circumventing an authorities ability to detect an offence, and some authorities will assume innoccuous behaviour is evidence probable cause or reasonable suspicion, basically where im sitting, any circumstance you create that causes an investigation to go off script, can be interference if you intended to do it regardless of what you are trying to accomplish.

Here breathlyzers aren't evidence, they're probable cause. To be admissible they either need you to accept the result, or go custodial for a blood test.

Sounds like typical legal stances on breathalyzers, speed cameras and red light cameras.

A bad breathalyzer can be challenged in court as "not scientifically reliable".

https://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/08/22/ju...

A dog though is considered always reliable: https://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/supreme-court-alert-by-a-t...

So maybe they should have used TV-sniffing dogs instead? :)

Subtly different situation -- a dog sniff is only an indicator of probable cause, while a breathalyzer may be presented as evidence of guilt.

I wish I could remember the source of the statement: "To search someone's vehicle, a police officer needs a warrant signed by a judge or permission from a dog."

Well said, but in fact they don't need even that. They'd just say they smelled "strong marijuana odor" (the proof it isn't happened now on you, and how exactly you're gonna prove they didn't smell that?) or that a confidential informant (local junkie) told them he have seen a person looking like you doing whatever they want to accuse you of.

Qualified immunity pretty much guarantees there's no punishment for any shenanigan as long as it can be plausibly presented to a judge as the police believing it's lawful (it doesn't need to be lawful, just belief is enough). The worst they risk is evidence being excluded - so no risk at all vs not searching.

Around here they are just used as part of a first step I think: if you fail it you'll be asked to go for a alcohol blood test.

And around here, they’ll just take you to the station for a more advanced breathalyzer test (Canada). Even though the police can compel a blood sample through a hospital, they don’t bother because the law doesn’t require it for a conviction.

At first I read "bad breathalyzer" as one that tells you to use mouthwash, and not as the assumed intended bad=bogus wording.

That's what parallel construction is for!

Its the opposite. The TV vans were the parallel construction, they couldn't have worked but they were known to send licensing officers to look through peoples windows during prime TV watching hours.

As a child in the 80s I remember my family being scared of this van even though it probably never existed. Because of this my mum got a pay TV instead which we had to put 50p coins in periodically that paid for both the TV rental and the license fee.

You had a coin-operated TV...? At home...? Did someone come regularly to collect the coins? I'm genuinely fascinated by this.

I still know people in Dublin that have coin operated electricity, though I think nearly all of them have been moved to card based systems.

They had that in the mainland too. It was something which was forced on poor people and resulted in electricity prices considerably higher than they otherwise would have been.

My grandparents were forced to have one. My late grandfather had PTSD from fighting in WWII and could basically never hold down a job or make a good financial decision.

I've been to campsites where the showers are free, but the hot water requires coins. You really want to get your money's worth, but the fear of being lathered up and it going straight cold motivates you to be quick.

I also remember the coin operated tellys. Yes, every 6 months or there abouts the coiny-telly man would come about to collect the coins. It was a real hassle, as you had to be at your flat all that day. Otherwise, the coiny-telly man would just pass you up. Thing was, the little bin that the coins fell into would fill up every 9 months or so. So, if the coiny-telly man passed you up, you'd have to ration when you could watch TV. I remember the first time my mum made this mistake and the bin got filled. My pa was so angry that he didn't get to watch Emmerdale Farm and Whizz-Bizz that night as no more would fit in the machine. Well, we never made that mistake again.

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not.

It sounds a bit four Yorkshire men but these TVs and this service did exist.

Black Mirror is amazing because of this. I absolutely love British humor or is it humour?

I've never seen a coin-op TV, but "back when I were a lad" we had electricity on the same principle. IIRC (and this is dark & distant memory) it started off coin-op and transitioned to cards you had to buy from local stores.

Not sure about emptying them, but the TVs with coin slots where a thing in the UK:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes...

Not for the BBC license though: it was when TVs where expensive (in the 60s and 70s) and so some people could just rent one.

Probably sounds alien to US people, but UK was much poorer country, especially in workers areas...

They were originally a US innovation that were imported and duplicated in the UK!

See my sibling link. First thought of by the US International Telemeter Corporation in the late 40s or very early 50s.

You're right to highlight the point about the UK's former lack of wealth (as it's not obvious), but I was amused by the reference to "workers areas" - presumably "working class areas" as people have worked in pretty much all populated areas of the country since time immemorial.

Yes, working class, or worker as opposed to executive, office employee, etc...

It's real. The TV rental companies had a range of approaches, one of which was the very expensive option of a coin operated TV. Another common way to pay was by book and visit the TV rental shop weekly to pay a little. If you had one of the coin ops, chances are your electric and gas were on coin operated meters too - with the landlord of your flat or bedsit setting their own markup on that meter...

https://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/cointv/

Edit: To add some context:

Don't forget it was still common for people to be paid in cash, weekly. For those on lower incomes paying a monthly rental was often difficult and many of those cash employees had no need of a bank account. So weekly payments at the shop, collection agents and other options like coin op were far more common. You might get a visit every year or two to pay premiums on something like a life assurance policy, and a little hand written book was your only record of payment.

>> If you had one of the coin ops, chances are your electric and gas were on coin operated meters too - with the landlord of your flat or bedsit setting their own markup on that meter...

Some friends of mine who lived in London had an electricity meter that they had to recharge with cards they got from the corner shop. This was in 2005 or so. Do you know how common this is in London, or the rest of the UK, nowadays?

At the time I had found it at the very least a huge hassle. It was one of those things when I first got to the UK that I just couldn't comprehend.

Another one: when I got my first check from my job at the time (working at a warehouse) I went to the bank to collect it and the bank said I had to wait for a week to make sure the check wouldn't bounce and I think to ensure I wasn't money laundering. I couldn't believe what they were telling me, so I asked the people I worked with who confirmed it. Except, they said it wasn't a big deal: you just go to a shop, give them the check and they give you 80% of your salary. So you don't have to wait for a week.

So wait, I work all week, then the bank will treat me as a potential criminal and some financial parasite will suck off 20% of my salary as a consequence? And the people I worked with just shrugged it off. It was considered just normal. I told people Back Home (in Greece) about all this and they just didn't believe me.

>>Some friends of mine who lived in London had an electricity meter that they had to recharge with cards they got from the corner shop.

This still happens, but only if you are far behind on your electricity bills, the supply company will eventually just say "ok, we will keep supplying you, but you must agree to have pre-paid meter installed at home". That way you can't be late on your payments anymore.

>>Another one: when I got my first check from my job at the time (working at a warehouse)

Wait....that was in the UK? And someone gave you a cheque? Those pretty much don't exist in the UK anymore, it's like an ancient relic of the past if you see one. The only situation when they are still used is for insurance payouts, for some reason the insurance companies still prefer to send you a cheque.

>> That way you can't be late on your payments anymore.

Thanks for clarifying. I'm guessing though the meters tend to stay in the homes even after the late-paying tennants have moved out?

>> Wait....that was in the UK? And someone gave you a cheque?

Yes, this was in the UK, in the South East, in 2005. It's been a while so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details but I think what happened was that I didn't have a bank account yet and so I was paid by cheque (thanks). Also, if I remember correctly, I refused to make use of the shops and I subsisted on the money I had in my Greek bank account (that I could access from UK terminals with my Greek bank card) until I got a UK bank account.

Some of my colleagues made use of the shops they recommended to me though, so either they too got paid by cheque or more likely they basically took a loan out on their salaries. Which sounds less mad, but only until you see some of the rates for payday loans (as I gather you must have).

Card meters are what replaced the old coin in the slot meters - they're a set price from the utility, so no extra markup for the landlord any more. They're still a fairly expensive way to get fuel compared to monthly payments.

As gambiting says they;re often put in if you get behind on bills, but if you have poor credit or move into a flat that already has them I think it can be pretty damn difficult to get off them. Like some utilities make a charge or ask a deposit to get a normal meter put in again, even if that wasn't down to you in the first place.

So if you've haven't got much you tend to lose out 2 or 3 ways.

>> As gambiting says they;re often put in if you get behind on bills, but if you have poor credit or move into a flat that already has them I think it can be pretty damn difficult to get off them. Like some utilities make a charge or ask a deposit to get a normal meter put in again, even if that wasn't down to you in the first place.

Ah, thanks- I was wondering about that. I imagined it wouldn't be simple to take the meter off once it's on.

Wow, I never heard of this before. I found the following article and it was an interesting read:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/oct/30/pay-as-you-vie...

The Thatcher years were harsh. I imagine you also had free school meals as your main meal of the day.

The TV rental business was very much like mobile phone contracts. For this reason I am not one of those people that buys a mobile phone on contract with the 'upgrade' every two years. The 'contract' your family were on for the TV was 'pay as you go' and I shudder to think how often your family could have paid for the TV, probably ten times over!

The fear of the TV detector van kept people tuned in to what important stuff was being disseminated on the state broadcaster that pretends to be independent. Sure there were home computers, VHS/Betamax and 'the wireless' back then but screen based entertainment was limited.

The TV had four channels (if you were lucky), so that meant news every night about the latest Cold War tensions, the misery of the Miner's Strike, the joy of the Poll Tax riots, the obsession with inflation, the latest dole figures, what privatisation was being flogged, 'Protect and Survive' and messages about how heroin screws you up.

Remember there was no such thing as society, you just had to hide behind your door and rely on the 'neighbourhood watch' signs for security. Crime really was a thing then, burglary a fear far worse than it should have been. The BBC very much reflected this but we remember 'Life on Earth' and tell ourselves how wonderful the BBC was.

Icing on the cake for this miserable era was the actual BBC. Radio 1 was 'Smashy and nicey' DJs that were quite depressing and BBC children's programming had presenters that have invariably been prosecuted in recent years for child abuse related offences.

But at least we had a national conversation. Remember 'who shot JR?'. Nowadays people would be saving the box set to watch later so you can't have this shared conversation, if anything it is anything but.

> Remember 'who shot JR?'

All was revealed by Father Ted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq4_c-_r0K4

The Thatcher years were harsh

That's not really fair is it? They started harsh because the country was a wreck when she was first elected. The miners went on strike because they were used to being able to topple governments by doing so. The obsession with inflation came about in contrast to the previous obsession with employment figures, yielding a country with full employment but sky-high inflation. Thatcher argued that was wrong and you could have full employment with low inflation: several boom economies since then have shown she was correct.

After Thatcher had won three elections Britain was a first world country again. You don't see many people pining for Britain in the 70s with all the strikes, electricity outages, bailouts and 3 day weeks. Blame her for the poll tax, sure, but even then those riots were by people who wanted unfair taxation: they defined "fair" as some people having to pay more for the exact same services than others do, something nobody tolerates in the commercial world.

Remember there was no such thing as society

You're selectively quoting Thatcher here, as her ideological enemies do so often. She was pointing out that when her opponents said "society will pay for it" there was no such thing as an abstract, disconnected, third party entity labelled "society" that would magically inject money into Britain - that what such people really meant was "my neighbours will be forced to pay for it".

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689

Here's the full quote:

But it [people living on benefits/blaming society for their problems] went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.

Doesn't sound so bad when you realise her alternative to the word "society" was "a living tapestry and men and women and people", that this tapestry is "beautiful" and that the quality of our lives depend on "how much each of us is .... prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate".

It's ironic yet totally unsurprising that her argument against imprecise socialist double-speak is now usually referenced via a selective quote designed to make her look inhumane.

> The fear of the TV detector van kept people tuned in [...]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but that doesn't seem to me like it makes any sense. How could fear of being caught watching the TV without a licence make you more likely to watch the TV? It could make you more likely to pay, or less likely to have a TV, but those are entirely different.

I believe when you buy a TV retailers are required to take down your address

I bought one once and evidently they managed to typo the house number, so our neighbour down the street who didn't have a TV kept getting the 'we know you have a TV but no license threatening letters

>I believe when you buy a TV retailers are required to take down your address

Is this for real? I remember thinking "dystopian as hell" when I heard about all the CCTVs in England, but this one takes the cake. I can at least see the points made by the other side of the CCTV argument, even though I very much disagree with them.

Why cannot one just buy a TV in England without giving out their personal info?

It used to be true, the law changed a while ago.

The law wasn't "you must hand over your details when buying a tv", it was "you must ask for details when selling a tv". Customers were free to supply false information.

I did, I just change the first two letters of my postcode to another town over for all that crap.

In Israel you were used to be required to provide your equivalent of ssn upon purchase of a tv setm, so the gov would be able to charge you public tv fee. the fee was finally abolished couple years ago.

It is actually worse than this. They send out the letters (it often seems randomly) AND they will send someone to come to your house who will "inspect" your TV/demand entry/make threats...

...this is one of these utterly bizarre public sector things where the govt will hire a private company to chase down people (usually immigrants, unemployed, etc.) and give them a cut of whatever is looted...unsurprisingly, this has proved to be controversial in practice.

I have actually heard of people who called the police because they were being harassed by these people. All so some chinless wonder from Oxbridge can get paid £200k/year commissioning dogshit documentaries about Ethiopian trance music (the BBC massively underpays for talent but employs an unfathomably large number of middle managers).

I would love to see how this kind of system would work in Texas.

As a foreigner, I could one-up your complaint with this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/outsideuk

  I live outside the UK. Can I use BBC iPlayer?
  BBC iPlayer is funded by the UK TV Licence
   and its use is restricted to UK residents only.

> ...this is one of these utterly bizarre public sector things where the govt will hire a private company to chase down people (usually immigrants, unemployed, etc.) and give them a cut of whatever is looted...unsurprisingly, this has proved to be controversial in practice.

This actually happened to me! I (Mexican living in the UK) was at my rented flat with my father visiting. We were watching a movie in a TV I had (which I mainly used to watch DVDs or things from my computer) when suddenly someone knocked at the door. I usually never opened (I did not have many friends while living there) but given that my father was there, it would have been weird to leave the person ringing the bell while we were watching the movie.

Turned out to be one of those license guys. As an expat without knowledge of my rights, I did not know what to do and the bastard kept pushing... until I let him in. He "inspected" the TV where we were watching the movie, and I told him that yeah I had a TV but did only use it for watching DVDs. At the end, he "saw" that it did not have an antenna and he basically said that because of that, we were OK (it kind of felt as if he just wanted to get out of the awkward situation).

After he left, my father and I talked about how crazy was that system were they send mafiosos to check if you had a TV... first world problems.

Yep, they actually have no power to search your premises (obv). They are, literally, just some guys herded off the street by a dodgy company that get paid a commission to squeeze money out/scare people.

Nonetheless, I have heard of them: forcing entry into people's homes, claiming to have powers of search, claiming to have power to issue fines, claiming to work on behalf of the police and that they can request arrest...it is kind of incredible.

Britain is a very odd place (I say this as a Brit).

The law was abolished in 2013. You were also free to give false information - I know a couple of people who gave their postcode as SW1A 2AA (they had a TV licence, they just didn't want to give their address to the retailer).

> The Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1967 (as amended) has been repealed, meaning that from 25 June 2013 onwards you no longer need to send us customer name and address details when you sell or rent out TV equipment. This also means your business no longer has to keep sales records to comply with the law on TV Licensing. If you don’t need these records for anything else you can destroy them from 25 June.

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/business...

Good to know - this was before '13

The silly thing was our house had a license, plus the TV in question was only ever used for a games console so never received TV signals

For context, SW1A 2AA is the postcode for 10 Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives. So it would be like giving "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" as your postal address.

Ah, I meant to mention that. Thanks for adding.

That seems to be true.

I once received a letter from TV licensing after I bought a TV USB dongle off Amazon...

Not just TVs but the did this when you bought a VCR. I remember being required to give my name and address when buying a VCR back in the 90s from Comet. Otherwise I wasn’t allowed to buy it.

You are absolutely correct, I worked in a well known UK electrical retailer in the 90s and we were indeed obligated to provide the names and addresses of everyone who bought a new TV to the TV Licencing Authority. (Last time I called it an "Authority" I was criticized for using "overly dystopian" language to describe it, but that's exactly what the legislation calls it too).

I researched this the last time TV detector vans came up (it seems to be on repeat on HackerNews a lot...), the legislation was repealed in 2013 so it's not done anymore. It was for sure this that was the real enforcement tool I imagine prior to 2013, rather than the mythical van. Much easier to just check the address against the TV sales database than randomly drive a fleet of vans around the entire country!

> https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/business...

Israel has similar system, and they regularly send scary letters to people not even owning the TV, and you have to prove it. If you don't, they could just deduct the fine from your bank account, and good luck proving anything or getting your money back, even if you never owned the TV and never watched public broadcast that TV license is supposed to pay for.

We cord cut and moved away from broadcast TV round about 2000, or a little earlier, yet retained a TV. It was far, far easier to get the BBC to see sense about licence status - either not needing one, or having one and they simply messed up details on moving or whatever, than it has been with Crapita. Since the BBC were forced to outsource it, in the early 00s, we found it simply wasn't worth bothering with. They were getting it wrong about our status over 50% of the time, despite following their "prove your innocence" hoops every year or two on the website, often the same day the letter or email was received.

Eventually we gave up and just let them inundate our paper recycling. They've been comically useless. I am certain after 15 years of their incompetence, Capita have been responsible for many an unsafe conviction.

After the stories I'd heard, I was expecting something like this, but I lived in a flat in the UK without paying for a TV license earlier this decade, and heard almost nothing from them. They sent me one letter, about six months after I moved in, saying I should pay a license fee. I returned it checking the "don't have a TV" box, and I don't recall ever getting hassled after that.

If memory serves from when I used to work for a retailer (some 30 years ago now) we were required to submit the name & address of anyone who rented/bought a TV. I think they just tallied this list against their database.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com