The pariahs at TV Licensing have been making the headlines again, with the news that they threatened a grieving widow over a debt of two pence.
Frail Iris Jamieson, 74, found herself struggling with the household bills following the death of her husband Kenneth last year.
The couple's previous TV licence had been in Kenneth's name, but when he died Iris found herself in the position of needing her own TV licence for the few months until she also qualified for a "free" over-75 TV licence.
On reaching the age of 75 Iris stopped making payments with her TV Licensing payment card and set about claiming her "free" TV licence. Unbeknown to her, she had overlooked the fact that an extra 2 pence had been expected with the final payment.
Her daughter, Lesley Cormack, has hit out at those responsible for sending the "disgusting" letter, which threatened her mother with prosecution and £1,000 fine if she didn't pay the outstanding 2 pence debt.
Lesley said: "My dad sorted the television licence out and because he was 78 he was entitled to a free one.
“My mam didn’t realise this and just phoned up and had the licence changed into her name, not thinking any more about it.
"Then out of the blue she got this letter saying she owed them 2 pence.
"It is quite a nasty letter as well, saying she was at risk of breaking the law and threatening legal action, and for someone of her age this was very frightening.
"She has been really upset by it."
A TV Licensing spokesperson said: "We have apologised to Mrs Jameson and informed her she doesn't need to pay the amount requested in the letter, which was generated automatically by a computer."
TV Licensing's unique brand of customer service strikes again!
1 comment:
Yet more evidence that the TV Licence system has got to go. The fact that the letter was computer generated is no excuse for the harrassment of elderly people. It's the BBC's policy to send these threatening letters out by the million. The BBC has complete control over the computer system and the wording of the letters it produces. Unfortunately, they care only about the money generated by their threats. Because they have the TV licensing law behind them, the BBC has become greedy, arrogant and uncaring. If the TV licence was a voluntary subscription they would have to take a different approach - they'd have to be polite and helpful as it would be in their interest to keep subscribers.
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