TV licence ™ scam
Just a word of warning that a scam is circulating inviting people to renew their TV licence. I foolishly did not double check my account. So beware.
Check the email address the msg is from and check your licence number against the email.
It could be argued that the anyone demanding payment from you for a TV licence is a scammer. That includes Capita as well of course, who are the BBC’s choice of “enforcement”
Some of us were probably tempted to respond ‘Yes it is!’.
If you need and use the services it’s realistically very good value - TV/iPlayer/Radio/HistoricalArchive programming, as well as free aspects such as the website for news/weather even if you prefer to get the news elsewhere.
Capita’s approach and frankly unpleasant tactics/communications are I think what mainly rubs people up the wrong way.
I am suspicious of ANY email asking for payments of any sort and always go to my account and check bills from there. I won’t even click the “log into your account” button on the email. Scams these days are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Good rule of thumb for emails - trust no-one, always be suspicious no matter how genuine it appears.
Incidentally, and on a different tack but it made me think of it, some months ago a police officer knocked on our door asking for information about a neighbour. I asked to see his ID before I would talk to him and he became quite shirty over this, saying “you don’t think I’m a police officer then?”. He showed it to me and I was satisfied but quite disgusting behaviour from a police officer. No wonder the police often get a bad name if this guy was in any way representative of their attitude.
Yes, wise to be sceptical of electronic communications, but very easy to almost get caught out due to their increasing sophistication.
You were correct to ask for ID and yes, that attitude was unacceptable.
I’ve been under the weather this week; subsequent brain fog caught me out. Mea culpa.
“My bank” rang me to explain how to spot the TV licence scammer; they then said someone is using your account to purchase things on eBay. There were warning signs: poor telephone line, and long winded but plausible explanations in response my sceptical questions.
Credit to my bank in reimbursing me quickly once my head had cleared.
I thought the thread title was simply a statement. 
