<story><title>TV detector van</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>agurk</author><text>I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn&amp;#x27;t have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory.&lt;p&gt;They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn&amp;#x27;t have a licence you&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;It didn&amp;#x27;t take long to realise in the age of databases, it&amp;#x27;s easier just to send out scary letters to all address without a registered licence and hope there will be some &amp;#x27;conversion rate&amp;#x27;. The effort required to actually chase on this seemed disproportional to the benefits.&lt;p&gt;And for those wondering, I did have a licence, it&amp;#x27;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>monkeynotes</author><text>The ads were hugely dystopian: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;d feel sorry for them, but they all seem mostly happy with life.&lt;p&gt;Paying a license to have a TV (and it&amp;#x27;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.</text></comment>
<story><title>TV detector van</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>agurk</author><text>I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn&amp;#x27;t have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory.&lt;p&gt;They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn&amp;#x27;t have a licence you&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;It didn&amp;#x27;t take long to realise in the age of databases, it&amp;#x27;s easier just to send out scary letters to all address without a registered licence and hope there will be some &amp;#x27;conversion rate&amp;#x27;. The effort required to actually chase on this seemed disproportional to the benefits.&lt;p&gt;And for those wondering, I did have a licence, it&amp;#x27;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sofaofthedamned</author><text>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.</text></comment>