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Please do not write below the line

362 points by dcminter 2y ago

matthewfelgate 2y ago
I say try writing "drop table;" at the bottom and post it back. :-)
ChilledTonic 2y ago
Truly a perfect mystery. Perhaps at one point letters were expected to be returned, and this feature of the letterhead has been copied over the years without thinking? The OCR statement is confusing. It speaks of a customer manager trying to pass the buck down the line as quickly as possible
- technothrasher 2y ago
  my thought was that they perhaps have to accept returned letters informing them of the lack of a TV at the address, but in a sort of dark pattern they don't specifically say that in the hope that you use one of the other, less administratively expensive options listed in the letter.
ElevenLathe 2y ago
The best thing to do with these is to write "OK" below the line and move on with your life.
- warkdarrior 2y ago
  But then the government has a copy of your handwriting and may be able to use it in the future to incriminate you in some other setting.
  - NotYourLawyer 2y ago
    Write it with your non dominant hand. Or your foot.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
IshKebab 2y ago
It's pretty obvious that they use this OCR system to track sent letters that don't expect a reply as well as forms you return and they've just used the same template in both cases.
- almostnormal 2y ago
  Scanning the ones returned as undeliverable. Those would of course not have been opened and therefore nothing written on them.
jvanderbot 2y ago
Because a returned letter must be associated with an account / account holder to be processed. Though they knew this information when they sent it to the author, presumably it would be laborious to manually associate the same information with each returned letter (one would have to look it up anyway), so they probably print the data on the letter that may someday be returned, to allow quick lookup in the event it is returned. It's equivalent to a conversation ID and interface crafted to avoid lookups, making this letter exchange idempotent, which I very much appreciate. Why it was not requested to be returned is beyond me, but likely all such letters contain this.
- stavros 2y ago
  > Because a returned letter must be associated with an account / account holder to be processed. But they didn't ask for the letter to be returned at all.
  - froddd 2y ago
    Undelivered letters could be returned to sender. In which case… there would definitely be no need to instruct to not write anything below the line, as nobody would have opened the letter.
    - jvanderbot 2y ago
      If only they knew the fate of the letter before sending, then
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    Of course not, but they could have and that explains the use of data to associate a returned letter. It's a form letter. In the event it's returned you want the data, regardless.
efitz 2y ago
Please do not write below this line. ———————————————
- yawnxyz 2y ago
  hey wait, what would happen if I wr
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    RIP yawnxyz
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  ——————————————— Please have not written above this line. Remember, temporal paradoxes are not covered by your insurer.
  - moritzruth 2y ago
    This sounds like something the Announcer voice from Portal 2 would say.
- rossdavidh 2y ago
  OK
- Oarch 2y ago
  below this line.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  This text is above the line. Please fix your orientation and cease writing below the line.
dijit 2y ago
Likeliest situation is all their stationary destined for send outs have the line; and in situations where the line serves no purpose it does no harm to leave it: so there is little use in having additional process around completely blank stock.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  Careful, this is what I suggested below and I'm already being punished for it. It seems the most likely explanation to me!
- Nition 2y ago
  They could have told him that though if it's the case, and the mystery would be solved. But there obviously wasn't any desire (or more charitably - time) on their end to really look into the reasoning or even understand the question. ---- Edit: I will share what I think is a nice a little counterpoint story here, from a business that is clearly still interested in understanding. I sent Lego an email a while ago: I'm just wondering if you're able to tell me what the tune is that the Lego Primo musical camel plays in set number 2007. It's a set from 1998. We have the camel and it plays a nice tune, but no-one seems to know what it is! They replied a day later: Thanks for getting in touch with us. This is a really really really and I mean really interesting question you got there for us. I have checked with all the resources I have and come to a possible conclusion. The Musical Camel – which in Denmark actually is called ‘PRIMO Dromedar'. 1st theory is that, One DUPLO-designer says that the melody was composed by the designer that created the camel but no one remembers the name who created the Musical Camel. Another thing is, one of the engineer once had a musical box that had the same melody but he is no longer with us anymore and cannot provide us the answer. I am so sorry that, at the end of the day I cannot provide you with any name to the title. But I hope the facts can make a good story for you to tell your friends.
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    That is an amazingly competent response. Every company should aspire to that kind of depth, if a toy company can manage it.
authorfly 2y ago
"Please do not park next to our nondescript White Van" would suite just as much.
- stronglikedan 2y ago
  They don't use non-descript vans. They want you to know who they are. Now, whether the vans can actually detect anything is a different matter. Some believe they are just a visual deterrent, and don't actually do anything beyond looking scary.
  - jimnotgym 2y ago
    That is my understanding. They certainly had a demonstration device that could deduct a local oscillator, but it is suggested it was just PR. There is some kind of 'detector' mentioned online that can apparently look at a window and see the light of a TV flickering on the glass! Judges buy this bs and issue warrants to search.
  - authorfly 2y ago
    The point is they have as much to gain from encouraging people to believe they actively use "TV scanners" and you can't know when they are about with their vans as saying nothing. Cynically it gets your auntie talking, brings TV license to front of mind. It's doubtful they ever actually did such a thing.
redundantly 2y ago
I love silly, pedantic, obstinate stuff like this. This was a very funny read!
- dcminter 2y ago
  I used to be a TV-free non-license-holding resident and found the constant accusations of criminality from "TV Licensing" (the BBC) infuriating. So I'm pre-disposed to be sympathetic to his crusade. Nice to see others enjoy it too.
- Nition 2y ago
  Sometimes silly stuff stays around for years because there isn't anyone obstinate enough to question it. Good to have a little check on reality every now and then.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- timwis 2y ago
  Then you’ll love this guy https://27bslash6.com/missy.html https://27bslash6.com/missy.html
cooper_ganglia 2y ago
A "TV License" is one of those things I alway assumed people were making up to satirize the claims of over-regulation & bureaucracy in the UK. Finding out it was real was a mixture of hilarious and sobering.
- TillE 2y ago
  It's basically a whole parallel tax collection system, which is truly nuts. Like the administrative overhead alone surely outweighs any abstract concerns about independence from government, which doesn't really exist in the UK anyway.
  - Guthur 2y ago
    What's when more mental is that they are essentially all funding state propaganda agencies and so you're literally paying to be propagandised. Not that much of none state media is really that much better to be honest.
    - coliveira 2y ago
      We all pay to receive propaganda, be it governmental or not. A private TV channel will spread the ideology of their owners, and it is usually an ideology that is useful to them.
      - account42 2y ago
        With private channels you can choose which ones to fund. Not so much with forced TV license fees for state broadcasters.
  - cooper_ganglia 2y ago
    The lines that really got me in this post were: > A Licensing officer may call at your property not to collect the letters but to check that you are not watching a TV. and >...Cas Scott has said that the letters are not sought by TVL/BBC agents who make street visits. Like, they show up at your home and ask to physically view your TV to make sure you aren't watching TV! It's so incredibly bonkers to me, I'm laughing out loud at work at the mental image! Never change, UK, never change.
gwbas1c 2y ago
Would be nice if the article had an example of the entire letter. The tiny sliver of image at the top of the article leaves very little context.
- ajb 2y ago
  If you go to the home page, you will see they have collected scans of these letters for every year since 2006. Most likely they didn't expect anyone to go direct to this page
  - dcminter 2y ago
    Yes, I submitted this sub-page as I thought the puzzle might interest (and amuse) the HN crowd. I'm sure the vast majority of people arrive at the site owner's main page though.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pjsg 2y ago
My guess is that they scan the letters that are returned by the post office and hence they don't want anybody writing below the line. I guess that they used to have a problem with squirrels opening up the letters and scribbling below the line. However, they seem to ignore the fact that squirrels can't read. More likely is that whenever they print OCR'able numbers / barcode/ whatever, they assume that a person is going to return it -- and the special case of 'we only get returned letters when the delivery has failed and nobody has opened the envelope' escaped the testing.
billforsternz 2y ago
Sometimes archaic things persist indefinitely in formal communication. Multiple organisations remind me I will need to install Adobe Acrobat in order to read linked PDF documents in their electronic communications.
davedx 2y ago
There's a fantastic film about TV Licensing called The Duke, I highly recommend it: https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/the-duke-review-jim-broadbent-charming-tv-licence-theft-venice-film-festival-633354?srsltid=AfmBOooL9LhvwiCsR6H_QY1zdltQxlidwas4GLE9x8i5zXqdga6Imz77 https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/the-duke-review-jim-broadbe... > When the film opens, [Kempton Bunton] is refusing to pay his TV licence fee on a technicality, since he can only get ITV because he’s removed “the BBC coil” from inside the set. It’s all part of his “Free TV for the OAPs” campaign, but despite his well-meaning demeanour, he serves time at Her Majesty’s expense for refusing to pay up to Auntie Beeb.
runjake 2y ago
I initially thought this was concerning emails, because for whatever reason, I've very recently noticed an uptick in "Please do not write below the line" a lot more in emails I receive, presumably to encourage top posting or perhaps for AI email ingestion? Anyway, apparently a strange coincidence.
- dfox 2y ago
  This is done by a lot of customer support and helpdesk systems that one would almost consider “legacy” that are certainly not related to AI in any way. So I would assume that the uptick is caused by you moving somewhat up in you career so you deal with such BS systems more often. On the other hand, the approach with explicit markers in the email is reliable. Alternative is some bunch of ad-hoc rules that will extract the actual reply from the reply, which has a lot of edge cases (which for some systems even extend to edge cases that involve the MIME envelope, not the message text itself).
  - runjake 2y ago
    Sadly. I'm already at the top of the scale, unless I want to go into management (I do not) or change workplaces, but I appreciate your optimism. :-)
- catsma21 2y ago
  you mean the zendesk ## Please do not write below this line ##?
  - runjake 2y ago
    Ironically, I haven't noticed the Zendesk one and a lot of these appear to be from conversations with people in corporate, but perhaps they're running their email messages through some tracking system.
hggigg 2y ago
Please don't get me started on these guys. I don't own a television and don't want one (it's a waste of life). I get sent letters all the time. Last year I had an "inspector" turn up who was told to "fuck off", managed to gain entry to the apartment block and then came and knocked on my internal door and refused to show ID, clearly because he was an intimidating arsehole and didn't want to be called on it. He was told to "fuck off" again and told me he'd come back with the police if I didn't let him in. I told him I'd ram the bike handle up his arse if he came back. Put a complaint in and they replied asking for my license number. Just like the stuff in that article - didn't even read it properly. Absolute clowns.
- jimnotgym 2y ago
  Just reminded me of how they used to get into University accommodation and try and catch people in every room
  - Retr0id 2y ago
    I used to live in a shared flat, and they sent individually addressed letters to each numbered room in the building - which, to my amusement, included the room number of the toilet.
    - jimnotgym 2y ago
      That might be a comment on the quality of modern TV, perhaps?
- chihuahua 2y ago
  You got a license for that bike handle, mate?
ajb 2y ago
The explanation is that this contracted out to Capita, which is the go to outsourcing company for UK government for tasks where a capacity for self reflection would be a disadvantage.
- tailspin2019 2y ago
  This comment made my day.
advisedwang 2y ago
As this website showcases there's a huge variety of these letters and they are clearly thrown together cheaply by people trying to make things official looking and scary. I wonder whether the line is simply an easy way to make things official looking. Or perhaps even they once did have something to return but the designers have continued to copy and paste it forward with not connection to any actual process.
joemi 2y ago
On the main page of the site, there's a scanned letter shown for every month, but it ends on April 2024. Does anyone know what happened to the author? If it weren't just tv licensing, I'd say it were worrying that there's been silence for the past several months after receiving such threatening letters.
retSava 2y ago
Looked at the main site and, oh my goodness, they are very, very intimidating and threatening to get one to buy a license.
ZoomZoomZoom 2y ago
The most baffling thing here is how the hell did the author get the organisation to respond, on topic, multiple times? In my experience conversing with various entities that are supposed to provide customer support, absolutely anything outside of an extremely narrow set of vetted topics with prepared answers and especially anything technical gets ignored and receives an irrelevant response at best.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  It's from 2006, before organizations realized that there were lots of trolls willing to dedicate themselves to wasting other people's time over bullshit.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - tailspin2019 2y ago
    …which is somewhat ironic in the context of TV Licensing which trolls the British public en masse with its relentless and unnecessarily aggressive communications.
    - BobaFloutist 2y ago
      You guys could decide to fund the BBC in the sane, default way of taxing everyone instead of the asinine approach of trying to tie it to usage at any time.
- mkl 2y ago
  Might be to do with when this happened, 2006-2007. He did have trouble getting them to respond on topic though.
- cal85 2y ago
  On-topic? Every reply seemed evasive to me. (Regarding how he got them to reply at all, this is required by law of public authorities.)
Retr0id 2y ago
Whoever runs this website is my personal hero. TV licensing enforcement practices are utterly ridiculous.
crazygringo 2y ago
I was really hoping for an answer at the end! I'm actually totally stumped by the whole thing. OCR doesn't even make sense, because OCR is terrible at handwriting generally. With forms they usually require you to write block letters and numbers inside of a kind of separate grid for each field. And maybe fill in some bubbles too. Anything anywhere on the page outside of the form fields is ignored. I'd find it far more plausible that they print all letters, those including forms and not, on the same template, and that returned forms get some kind of bar code or status stamped on the bottom upon being received, so they need to keep it empty for that. Kind of like how US envelopes get a little bar code printed on them by post office sorting. I have no earthly idea whether that's closer to the real reason though.
- zerocrates 2y ago
  If you look up some of these letters you'll see they have the quasi-official-looking things you'd otherwise see on scam letters, like a stamp that says "Enforcement Visit Approved" with a signature on it. I think "do not write below this line" is just another one of those things, it makes the letter seem like its part of Official Serious Bureaucracy.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    That would be really funny if true. You're totally right about the stamp part.
- coliveira 2y ago
  > OCR is terrible at handwriting generally That is true, but OCR is nonetheless used in many situations like this, for example at the postal office (the US postal office started doing this in 1965). Even if they can recognize only a fraction of the letters, it is a huge savings in terms of processing costs. The remaining will be handled manually anyway.
- margalabargala 2y ago
  I think there's a pretty reasonable explanation here, which is that "Do not write below the line" is a genuine instruction, but not for the recipient of the letter. Post offices may make notes such as "undeliverable" on a piece of mail. The sending company may make changes to their mailers which must be hand-updated on pre-printed cards. In both cases, writing below the line may obscure which ID had its letter rejected by the Post or which IDs have not had updated mailers sent yet. By the time the recipient of the letter receives it, they may write below the line as much as they like, as the instructions have already been followed by those they were intended for. I would not expect first line support to be aware of this.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dekhn 2y ago
You'd think the government would make its propaganda free to watch.
michaelmrose 2y ago
The people who you contacted don't understand any part of what the customer facing interface to their own job which is entirely usual. Its entirely possible that there was at one time instructions for return of the letter on an envelope that the party responding hasn't actually seen in years. They like a lot of people exist in a tiny silo with limited information outside of a tiny scope. They kept asking you to essentially call a function on the actual public api and you kept on ignoring the error messages. If you are tempted to feel smugly superior remember they were paid for their responses whereas you wasted your own time.
- dcminter 2y ago
  The author of the page is not the submitter (me). Not sure who you're addressing here.
duxup 2y ago
I worked for an old company that had a lot of old processes and paperwork. Many bits of paperwork had a "do not write below the line" type areas. I always wrote something ... nothing ever happened. I once hand delivered some paperwork (I was running late) to HR rather than using the inter office mail service. I asked them about it, they told me "Oh you must be Mathew..." I was HR famous. They didn't actually mind, the company was so process driven that having to visually double check my paperwork was just how things were. Later on they decided to repaint the entire office because we had slightly changed the colors of our logo. Not long after painting I jokingly put up a piece of paper on a huge white wall that read "This space intentionally left blank." The movers who took down the art put up the art on that wall again, and spaced it evenly ... around my note. It stayed there for at least 4 years before we left for a new building. Process...
- donatj 2y ago
  In a similar vein, I put an ill fitting jacket on a coat rack when I started my current job in 2012. We have moved offices twice, and the coat rack and jacket have followed me across both moves at no effort of my own. We've been working remote now since the beginning of covid, but our office is still open for anyone who wants to use it. I visited earlier this summer and my jacket was gone. I asked our office assistant about it and she had apparently just recently moved it to a lost and found box, noting that it had been there as long as she had. I told her the story about how the coat had followed me across two offices and twelve years. She seemed unentertained and asked me not to put it back. It's been moved to my desk for the time being.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
    If it helps, I'm entertained
  - noncoml 2y ago
    Thanks for sharing this. Made my day a bit brighter
  - ihaveajob 2y ago
    I left a pair of sandals in the shower room at work (a shared space) way before the pandemic. We stopped having a desk there, and I stopped coming in other than for a few social events. Then the office closed, and reopened. I came back for a coffee and went in just out of curiosity. The sandals were there, still in the same corner. Now they're home with me.
deskr 2y ago
He also collects and displays all the previous letters he's got from the BBC: http://www.bbctvlicence.com/ http://www.bbctvlicence.com/ They get increasingly threatening and aggressive. I'd guess that the OCR code scanning is to confirm that he's read the letter and adjust the hostility in the next letter appropriately.
- qwerty_clicks 2y ago
  Last letter is from April 2024 and says it’s the final stage! Something was about to happen but no update!!!!!!
- voussoir 2y ago
  Wow, these letters are extremely pathetic and unbecoming for a government agency. I would have expected the BBC to have more self respect than this mafia LARP.
dekhn 2y ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionally_blank_page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionally_blank_page
kazinator 2y ago
The writer assumes that "you" refers to him or her. It's possible that the request not to write below that line is part of a document template. The instruction is for the template users not to put content below there, not necessarily to document consumers. Though the template could be used as a basis for letters that do have to be returned. Basically nobody in the entire workflow chain should put anything there, so that if that space has to be OCRed, it will reliably work. > I am still not satisfied. If I send a letter back to TVL/BBC, and they scan the number at the bottom, it will generate the same information as they have already got; so, what's the point? But that's the happy case, when nobody has written anything there to interfere with the OCR. If the number cannot be read, then the document cannot be automatically associated with the residential address it pertains to; someone will have to deal with it manually.
dash2 2y ago
I love this country so much...
ano-ther 2y ago
From their main page, it looks like all of the letters with this line have something below it which is redacted. Could it be that they print the letter (perhaps sign in person as it is a legal document) and then scan/OCR it prior to sending? The redacted thing would then be an identifier for the recipient to be automatically filed. The email convo is from 2006 and this could be a realistic tech setup for this kind of organisation.
jaydenmilne 2y ago
Good news everyone - I was able to follow the link in the letter, successfully fill their form, and confirm with the TVL that I do not need a TV license. We’ll see if they send mail or jackbooted inspectors across the pond to confirm.
- jpsouth 2y ago
  You’re going to have an inspection van outside your house any minute now ;) Amusing that you can fill the form out with (presumably) foreign addresses.
bigmadden 2y ago
Wasn’t there a Simpson episode when Lisa was a cigarette sponsor and used her position to tell people not to smoke? They were able to fire her because Homer wrote “ok” in the ‘do not write below this line’ section of the application form. I do wonder if in theory a form could be invalidated for that reason if they really, really wanted to.
GrantMoyer 2y ago
I've never felt so much like I'm reading a passage from The Trial aside from while reading the novel itself.
urbandw311er 2y ago
My guess is that undelivered letters are returned to the sender and scanned in. Below the line will be a barcode or similar UID that identifies where the returned letters came from.
textninja 2y ago
The purpose seems clear to me from the explanation provided. Here's what I read between the lines. 1. Send out thousands of letters expecting some to be returned. They may be returned due to deliverability issues, or they may be returned with a reply attached or (probably less commonly) scrawled on the pages of the letter itself. Replies to letters are of course common whether they're expressly requested or not. 2. Give each letter a unique number in your database so you can cross reference the letter to the recipient information (including but not limited to the address) you have stored in your system. The letter may be returned with something else (e.g. another letter) attached so it's important to keep that information correlated. 3. Scanning the original letter is a low cost way to maintain this correlation. When the letters are returned you scan them then send them through a program you have set up to update the system accordingly. The program uses some primitive OCR and probably a checksum to automatically recognize the codes in the original letters. I can imagine this being used to automatically mark bad addresses if a letter is returned without additional context, but its main purpose is probably to route the letter - and any attachments, like other letters - to the appropriate agent. To support a workflow not unlike the one described above, it is requested that the unique number that identifies the letter be left unobscured. This way OCR can do its job, deliverability issues can be flagged with minimal human involvement, and replies to letters can be put in front of the right person without creating too much organizational overhead.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  But OP was not planning on returning the letter, so it would never be scanned. I think the BBC could have solved this preemptively, by simply making the letter say "Please do not write below this line, if you are returning the letter."
  - elcomet 2y ago
    Why would they waste ink to print this ? If he doesn't return the letter, then it doesn't matter...
  - DonsDiscountGas 2y ago
    Or it's a template that they use for a lot of things, many of which are intended to be returned, and nobody took the step to remove it since there is no harm in leaving it. Also: > Replies to letters are of course common whether they're expressly requested or not.
yapyap 2y ago
I assume it’s just lazyness
robaato 2y ago
Shades of UK comedian Joe Lycett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gkiw7zpULo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gkiw7zpULo
appplication 2y ago
This feels like what arguing with GPT-2 is like
satisfice 2y ago
The people at the BBC have failed the Turing test.
remram 2y ago
What does the full letter look like? They only posted a picture of the Santander one. Is there really no space for writing in, anywhere on that letter, above the line?
- aaronharnly 2y ago
  The author shares the full letter (in fact an archive of many years of letters!) on the homepage at http://www.bbctvlicence.com/ http://www.bbctvlicence.com/
justinclift 2y ago
Seems like a series of letters sent by someone with cognitive difficulties? Not really sure what the point of them is, other than documenting some of the weird stuff people doing customer service find themselves responding to. > Having kept all my TVL/BBC envelopes ... Well, that's a thing.
- account42 2y ago
  > Seems like a series of letters sent by someone with cognitive difficulties? No, just someone who isn't a complete NPC.
totetsu 2y ago
What was the thinking behind making a de facto compulsory licence fee for something that is available to everyone anyway? And then having a big annoying system for enforcing and investigating payments? Why was this seen as preferable to just paying for public television out of tax revenue?
grahamj 2y ago
below the line
Pinus 2y ago
Random association: Somewhere, I saw "leaves the top third of the first page blank without being asked to do so" as a sign that the person you are recruiting as a spy already works for the opposition. Maybe that goes for the bottom of the page as well. =)
- Dilettante_ 2y ago
  Now I'm curious: Why leave the top third of the first page blank? For spy stuff?
  - Pinus 2y ago
    My guess would be that he opposition trained their agents to leave space on the first page of their reports for archive file numbers, estimates of source reliability, notices about which consumers the information has been shared with, that sort of thing. (This was probably around 1950-1960 or so, so everything on paper, probably often handwritten.)
drcongo 2y ago
> To return an enquiry letter to TV licensing, simply return it. Some strong Scarfolk energy here.
matthewfelgate 2y ago
Reading this correspondence gives me a little PTSD about every time I have to deal with one of these bureaucratic organisations.
6510 2y ago
It allows the sender to confirm they did indeed send the document. (As opposed to someone else) I imagine they just slap it onto everything as a kind of Vogon poetry.
dusted 2y ago
On the surface, this absurdity is entertaining, but it's scary, like, proper actual _SCARY_ because the lack of.. sense, is so all encompassing. It tells the story of how it's simply impossible to get beyond the surface, beyond the dummy front. It reveals that there is no sense to be found. For a TV station, it's not _THAT_ bad, but this type of senselessness is all around us, in large companies, in government systems, in hospitals and on construction sites.. It's a cancer in modern society that has unseen, but grave consequences. This is how we will eventually manage to eradicate ourselves, and in a way, we've deserved it, because we allowed it to happen for so long. (Yes, I spoke with an ISP lately, it brings out the best in me)

362 points by dcminter 2y ago

I say try writing "drop table;" at the bottom and post it back. :-)

Truly a perfect mystery. Perhaps at one point letters were expected to be returned, and this feature of the letterhead has been copied over the years without thinking? The OCR statement is confusing. It speaks of a customer manager trying to pass the buck down the line as quickly as possible

technothrasher 2y ago
my thought was that they perhaps have to accept returned letters informing them of the lack of a TV at the address, but in a sort of dark pattern they don't specifically say that in the hope that you use one of the other, less administratively expensive options listed in the letter.

ElevenLathe 2y ago

The best thing to do with these is to write "OK" below the line and move on with your life.

warkdarrior 2y ago
But then the government has a copy of your handwriting and may be able to use it in the future to incriminate you in some other setting.
- NotYourLawyer 2y ago
  Write it with your non dominant hand. Or your foot.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

IshKebab 2y ago

It's pretty obvious that they use this OCR system to track sent letters that don't expect a reply as well as forms you return and they've just used the same template in both cases.

almostnormal 2y ago
Scanning the ones returned as undeliverable. Those would of course not have been opened and therefore nothing written on them.

jvanderbot 2y ago

Because a returned letter must be associated with an account / account holder to be processed. Though they knew this information when they sent it to the author, presumably it would be laborious to manually associate the same information with each returned letter (one would have to look it up anyway), so they probably print the data on the letter that may someday be returned, to allow quick lookup in the event it is returned. It's equivalent to a conversation ID and interface crafted to avoid lookups, making this letter exchange idempotent, which I very much appreciate. Why it was not requested to be returned is beyond me, but likely all such letters contain this.

stavros 2y ago
> Because a returned letter must be associated with an account / account holder to be processed. But they didn't ask for the letter to be returned at all.
- froddd 2y ago
  Undelivered letters could be returned to sender. In which case… there would definitely be no need to instruct to not write anything below the line, as nobody would have opened the letter.
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    If only they knew the fate of the letter before sending, then
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  Of course not, but they could have and that explains the use of data to associate a returned letter. It's a form letter. In the event it's returned you want the data, regardless.

efitz 2y ago

Please do not write below this line. ———————————————

yawnxyz 2y ago
hey wait, what would happen if I wr
- qingcharles 2y ago
  RIP yawnxyz
TeMPOraL 2y ago
——————————————— Please have not written above this line. Remember, temporal paradoxes are not covered by your insurer.
- moritzruth 2y ago
  This sounds like something the Announcer voice from Portal 2 would say.
rossdavidh 2y ago
OK
Oarch 2y ago
below this line.
Terr_ 2y ago
This text is above the line. Please fix your orientation and cease writing below the line.

dijit 2y ago

Likeliest situation is all their stationary destined for send outs have the line; and in situations where the line serves no purpose it does no harm to leave it: so there is little use in having additional process around completely blank stock.

jvanderbot 2y ago
Careful, this is what I suggested below and I'm already being punished for it. It seems the most likely explanation to me!
Nition 2y ago
They could have told him that though if it's the case, and the mystery would be solved. But there obviously wasn't any desire (or more charitably - time) on their end to really look into the reasoning or even understand the question. ---- Edit: I will share what I think is a nice a little counterpoint story here, from a business that is clearly still interested in understanding. I sent Lego an email a while ago: I'm just wondering if you're able to tell me what the tune is that the Lego Primo musical camel plays in set number 2007. It's a set from 1998. We have the camel and it plays a nice tune, but no-one seems to know what it is! They replied a day later: Thanks for getting in touch with us. This is a really really really and I mean really interesting question you got there for us. I have checked with all the resources I have and come to a possible conclusion. The Musical Camel – which in Denmark actually is called ‘PRIMO Dromedar'. 1st theory is that, One DUPLO-designer says that the melody was composed by the designer that created the camel but no one remembers the name who created the Musical Camel. Another thing is, one of the engineer once had a musical box that had the same melody but he is no longer with us anymore and cannot provide us the answer. I am so sorry that, at the end of the day I cannot provide you with any name to the title. But I hope the facts can make a good story for you to tell your friends.
- jaggederest 2y ago
  That is an amazingly competent response. Every company should aspire to that kind of depth, if a toy company can manage it.

authorfly 2y ago

"Please do not park next to our nondescript White Van" would suite just as much.

stronglikedan 2y ago
They don't use non-descript vans. They want you to know who they are. Now, whether the vans can actually detect anything is a different matter. Some believe they are just a visual deterrent, and don't actually do anything beyond looking scary.
- jimnotgym 2y ago
  That is my understanding. They certainly had a demonstration device that could deduct a local oscillator, but it is suggested it was just PR. There is some kind of 'detector' mentioned online that can apparently look at a window and see the light of a TV flickering on the glass! Judges buy this bs and issue warrants to search.
- authorfly 2y ago
  The point is they have as much to gain from encouraging people to believe they actively use "TV scanners" and you can't know when they are about with their vans as saying nothing. Cynically it gets your auntie talking, brings TV license to front of mind. It's doubtful they ever actually did such a thing.

redundantly 2y ago

I love silly, pedantic, obstinate stuff like this. This was a very funny read!

dcminter 2y ago
I used to be a TV-free non-license-holding resident and found the constant accusations of criminality from "TV Licensing" (the BBC) infuriating. So I'm pre-disposed to be sympathetic to his crusade. Nice to see others enjoy it too.
Nition 2y ago
Sometimes silly stuff stays around for years because there isn't anyone obstinate enough to question it. Good to have a little check on reality every now and then.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
timwis 2y ago
Then you’ll love this guy https://27bslash6.com/missy.html https://27bslash6.com/missy.html

cooper_ganglia 2y ago

A "TV License" is one of those things I alway assumed people were making up to satirize the claims of over-regulation & bureaucracy in the UK. Finding out it was real was a mixture of hilarious and sobering.

TillE 2y ago
It's basically a whole parallel tax collection system, which is truly nuts. Like the administrative overhead alone surely outweighs any abstract concerns about independence from government, which doesn't really exist in the UK anyway.
- Guthur 2y ago
  What's when more mental is that they are essentially all funding state propaganda agencies and so you're literally paying to be propagandised. Not that much of none state media is really that much better to be honest.
  - coliveira 2y ago
    We all pay to receive propaganda, be it governmental or not. A private TV channel will spread the ideology of their owners, and it is usually an ideology that is useful to them.
    - account42 2y ago
      With private channels you can choose which ones to fund. Not so much with forced TV license fees for state broadcasters.
- cooper_ganglia 2y ago
  The lines that really got me in this post were: > A Licensing officer may call at your property not to collect the letters but to check that you are not watching a TV. and >...Cas Scott has said that the letters are not sought by TVL/BBC agents who make street visits. Like, they show up at your home and ask to physically view your TV to make sure you aren't watching TV! It's so incredibly bonkers to me, I'm laughing out loud at work at the mental image! Never change, UK, never change.

gwbas1c 2y ago

Would be nice if the article had an example of the entire letter. The tiny sliver of image at the top of the article leaves very little context.

ajb 2y ago
If you go to the home page, you will see they have collected scans of these letters for every year since 2006. Most likely they didn't expect anyone to go direct to this page
- dcminter 2y ago
  Yes, I submitted this sub-page as I thought the puzzle might interest (and amuse) the HN crowd. I'm sure the vast majority of people arrive at the site owner's main page though.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

pjsg 2y ago

My guess is that they scan the letters that are returned by the post office and hence they don't want anybody writing below the line. I guess that they used to have a problem with squirrels opening up the letters and scribbling below the line. However, they seem to ignore the fact that squirrels can't read. More likely is that whenever they print OCR'able numbers / barcode/ whatever, they assume that a person is going to return it -- and the special case of 'we only get returned letters when the delivery has failed and nobody has opened the envelope' escaped the testing.

billforsternz 2y ago

Sometimes archaic things persist indefinitely in formal communication. Multiple organisations remind me I will need to install Adobe Acrobat in order to read linked PDF documents in their electronic communications.

davedx 2y ago

There's a fantastic film about TV Licensing called The Duke, I highly recommend it: https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/the-duke-review-jim-broadbent-charming-tv-licence-theft-venice-film-festival-633354?srsltid=AfmBOooL9LhvwiCsR6H_QY1zdltQxlidwas4GLE9x8i5zXqdga6Imz77 https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/the-duke-review-jim-broadbe... > When the film opens, [Kempton Bunton] is refusing to pay his TV licence fee on a technicality, since he can only get ITV because he’s removed “the BBC coil” from inside the set. It’s all part of his “Free TV for the OAPs” campaign, but despite his well-meaning demeanour, he serves time at Her Majesty’s expense for refusing to pay up to Auntie Beeb.

runjake 2y ago

I initially thought this was concerning emails, because for whatever reason, I've very recently noticed an uptick in "Please do not write below the line" a lot more in emails I receive, presumably to encourage top posting or perhaps for AI email ingestion? Anyway, apparently a strange coincidence.

dfox 2y ago
This is done by a lot of customer support and helpdesk systems that one would almost consider “legacy” that are certainly not related to AI in any way. So I would assume that the uptick is caused by you moving somewhat up in you career so you deal with such BS systems more often. On the other hand, the approach with explicit markers in the email is reliable. Alternative is some bunch of ad-hoc rules that will extract the actual reply from the reply, which has a lot of edge cases (which for some systems even extend to edge cases that involve the MIME envelope, not the message text itself).
- runjake 2y ago
  Sadly. I'm already at the top of the scale, unless I want to go into management (I do not) or change workplaces, but I appreciate your optimism. :-)
catsma21 2y ago
you mean the zendesk ## Please do not write below this line ##?
- runjake 2y ago
  Ironically, I haven't noticed the Zendesk one and a lot of these appear to be from conversations with people in corporate, but perhaps they're running their email messages through some tracking system.

hggigg 2y ago

Please don't get me started on these guys. I don't own a television and don't want one (it's a waste of life). I get sent letters all the time. Last year I had an "inspector" turn up who was told to "fuck off", managed to gain entry to the apartment block and then came and knocked on my internal door and refused to show ID, clearly because he was an intimidating arsehole and didn't want to be called on it. He was told to "fuck off" again and told me he'd come back with the police if I didn't let him in. I told him I'd ram the bike handle up his arse if he came back. Put a complaint in and they replied asking for my license number. Just like the stuff in that article - didn't even read it properly. Absolute clowns.

jimnotgym 2y ago
Just reminded me of how they used to get into University accommodation and try and catch people in every room
- Retr0id 2y ago
  I used to live in a shared flat, and they sent individually addressed letters to each numbered room in the building - which, to my amusement, included the room number of the toilet.
  - jimnotgym 2y ago
    That might be a comment on the quality of modern TV, perhaps?
chihuahua 2y ago
You got a license for that bike handle, mate?

ajb 2y ago

The explanation is that this contracted out to Capita, which is the go to outsourcing company for UK government for tasks where a capacity for self reflection would be a disadvantage.

tailspin2019 2y ago
This comment made my day.

advisedwang 2y ago

As this website showcases there's a huge variety of these letters and they are clearly thrown together cheaply by people trying to make things official looking and scary. I wonder whether the line is simply an easy way to make things official looking. Or perhaps even they once did have something to return but the designers have continued to copy and paste it forward with not connection to any actual process.

joemi 2y ago

On the main page of the site, there's a scanned letter shown for every month, but it ends on April 2024. Does anyone know what happened to the author? If it weren't just tv licensing, I'd say it were worrying that there's been silence for the past several months after receiving such threatening letters.

retSava 2y ago

Looked at the main site and, oh my goodness, they are very, very intimidating and threatening to get one to buy a license.

ZoomZoomZoom 2y ago

The most baffling thing here is how the hell did the author get the organisation to respond, on topic, multiple times? In my experience conversing with various entities that are supposed to provide customer support, absolutely anything outside of an extremely narrow set of vetted topics with prepared answers and especially anything technical gets ignored and receives an irrelevant response at best.

anigbrowl 2y ago
It's from 2006, before organizations realized that there were lots of trolls willing to dedicate themselves to wasting other people's time over bullshit.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tailspin2019 2y ago
  …which is somewhat ironic in the context of TV Licensing which trolls the British public en masse with its relentless and unnecessarily aggressive communications.
  - BobaFloutist 2y ago
    You guys could decide to fund the BBC in the sane, default way of taxing everyone instead of the asinine approach of trying to tie it to usage at any time.
mkl 2y ago
Might be to do with when this happened, 2006-2007. He did have trouble getting them to respond on topic though.
cal85 2y ago
On-topic? Every reply seemed evasive to me. (Regarding how he got them to reply at all, this is required by law of public authorities.)

Retr0id 2y ago

Whoever runs this website is my personal hero. TV licensing enforcement practices are utterly ridiculous.

crazygringo 2y ago

I was really hoping for an answer at the end! I'm actually totally stumped by the whole thing. OCR doesn't even make sense, because OCR is terrible at handwriting generally. With forms they usually require you to write block letters and numbers inside of a kind of separate grid for each field. And maybe fill in some bubbles too. Anything anywhere on the page outside of the form fields is ignored. I'd find it far more plausible that they print all letters, those including forms and not, on the same template, and that returned forms get some kind of bar code or status stamped on the bottom upon being received, so they need to keep it empty for that. Kind of like how US envelopes get a little bar code printed on them by post office sorting. I have no earthly idea whether that's closer to the real reason though.

zerocrates 2y ago
If you look up some of these letters you'll see they have the quasi-official-looking things you'd otherwise see on scam letters, like a stamp that says "Enforcement Visit Approved" with a signature on it. I think "do not write below this line" is just another one of those things, it makes the letter seem like its part of Official Serious Bureaucracy.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  That would be really funny if true. You're totally right about the stamp part.
coliveira 2y ago
> OCR is terrible at handwriting generally That is true, but OCR is nonetheless used in many situations like this, for example at the postal office (the US postal office started doing this in 1965). Even if they can recognize only a fraction of the letters, it is a huge savings in terms of processing costs. The remaining will be handled manually anyway.
margalabargala 2y ago
I think there's a pretty reasonable explanation here, which is that "Do not write below the line" is a genuine instruction, but not for the recipient of the letter. Post offices may make notes such as "undeliverable" on a piece of mail. The sending company may make changes to their mailers which must be hand-updated on pre-printed cards. In both cases, writing below the line may obscure which ID had its letter rejected by the Post or which IDs have not had updated mailers sent yet. By the time the recipient of the letter receives it, they may write below the line as much as they like, as the instructions have already been followed by those they were intended for. I would not expect first line support to be aware of this.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dekhn 2y ago

You'd think the government would make its propaganda free to watch.

michaelmrose 2y ago

The people who you contacted don't understand any part of what the customer facing interface to their own job which is entirely usual. Its entirely possible that there was at one time instructions for return of the letter on an envelope that the party responding hasn't actually seen in years. They like a lot of people exist in a tiny silo with limited information outside of a tiny scope. They kept asking you to essentially call a function on the actual public api and you kept on ignoring the error messages. If you are tempted to feel smugly superior remember they were paid for their responses whereas you wasted your own time.

dcminter 2y ago
The author of the page is not the submitter (me). Not sure who you're addressing here.

duxup 2y ago

I worked for an old company that had a lot of old processes and paperwork. Many bits of paperwork had a "do not write below the line" type areas. I always wrote something ... nothing ever happened. I once hand delivered some paperwork (I was running late) to HR rather than using the inter office mail service. I asked them about it, they told me "Oh you must be Mathew..." I was HR famous. They didn't actually mind, the company was so process driven that having to visually double check my paperwork was just how things were. Later on they decided to repaint the entire office because we had slightly changed the colors of our logo. Not long after painting I jokingly put up a piece of paper on a huge white wall that read "This space intentionally left blank." The movers who took down the art put up the art on that wall again, and spaced it evenly ... around my note. It stayed there for at least 4 years before we left for a new building. Process...

donatj 2y ago
In a similar vein, I put an ill fitting jacket on a coat rack when I started my current job in 2012. We have moved offices twice, and the coat rack and jacket have followed me across both moves at no effort of my own. We've been working remote now since the beginning of covid, but our office is still open for anyone who wants to use it. I visited earlier this summer and my jacket was gone. I asked our office assistant about it and she had apparently just recently moved it to a lost and found box, noting that it had been there as long as she had. I told her the story about how the coat had followed me across two offices and twelve years. She seemed unentertained and asked me not to put it back. It's been moved to my desk for the time being.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  If it helps, I'm entertained
- noncoml 2y ago
  Thanks for sharing this. Made my day a bit brighter
- ihaveajob 2y ago
  I left a pair of sandals in the shower room at work (a shared space) way before the pandemic. We stopped having a desk there, and I stopped coming in other than for a few social events. Then the office closed, and reopened. I came back for a coffee and went in just out of curiosity. The sandals were there, still in the same corner. Now they're home with me.

deskr 2y ago

He also collects and displays all the previous letters he's got from the BBC: http://www.bbctvlicence.com/ http://www.bbctvlicence.com/ They get increasingly threatening and aggressive. I'd guess that the OCR code scanning is to confirm that he's read the letter and adjust the hostility in the next letter appropriately.

qwerty_clicks 2y ago
Last letter is from April 2024 and says it’s the final stage! Something was about to happen but no update!!!!!!
voussoir 2y ago
Wow, these letters are extremely pathetic and unbecoming for a government agency. I would have expected the BBC to have more self respect than this mafia LARP.

dekhn 2y ago

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionally_blank_page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionally_blank_page

kazinator 2y ago

The writer assumes that "you" refers to him or her. It's possible that the request not to write below that line is part of a document template. The instruction is for the template users not to put content below there, not necessarily to document consumers. Though the template could be used as a basis for letters that do have to be returned. Basically nobody in the entire workflow chain should put anything there, so that if that space has to be OCRed, it will reliably work. > I am still not satisfied. If I send a letter back to TVL/BBC, and they scan the number at the bottom, it will generate the same information as they have already got; so, what's the point? But that's the happy case, when nobody has written anything there to interfere with the OCR. If the number cannot be read, then the document cannot be automatically associated with the residential address it pertains to; someone will have to deal with it manually.

dash2 2y ago

I love this country so much...

ano-ther 2y ago

From their main page, it looks like all of the letters with this line have something below it which is redacted. Could it be that they print the letter (perhaps sign in person as it is a legal document) and then scan/OCR it prior to sending? The redacted thing would then be an identifier for the recipient to be automatically filed. The email convo is from 2006 and this could be a realistic tech setup for this kind of organisation.

jaydenmilne 2y ago

Good news everyone - I was able to follow the link in the letter, successfully fill their form, and confirm with the TVL that I do not need a TV license. We’ll see if they send mail or jackbooted inspectors across the pond to confirm.

jpsouth 2y ago
You’re going to have an inspection van outside your house any minute now ;) Amusing that you can fill the form out with (presumably) foreign addresses.

bigmadden 2y ago

Wasn’t there a Simpson episode when Lisa was a cigarette sponsor and used her position to tell people not to smoke? They were able to fire her because Homer wrote “ok” in the ‘do not write below this line’ section of the application form. I do wonder if in theory a form could be invalidated for that reason if they really, really wanted to.

GrantMoyer 2y ago

I've never felt so much like I'm reading a passage from The Trial aside from while reading the novel itself.

urbandw311er 2y ago

My guess is that undelivered letters are returned to the sender and scanned in. Below the line will be a barcode or similar UID that identifies where the returned letters came from.

textninja 2y ago

The purpose seems clear to me from the explanation provided. Here's what I read between the lines. 1. Send out thousands of letters expecting some to be returned. They may be returned due to deliverability issues, or they may be returned with a reply attached or (probably less commonly) scrawled on the pages of the letter itself. Replies to letters are of course common whether they're expressly requested or not. 2. Give each letter a unique number in your database so you can cross reference the letter to the recipient information (including but not limited to the address) you have stored in your system. The letter may be returned with something else (e.g. another letter) attached so it's important to keep that information correlated. 3. Scanning the original letter is a low cost way to maintain this correlation. When the letters are returned you scan them then send them through a program you have set up to update the system accordingly. The program uses some primitive OCR and probably a checksum to automatically recognize the codes in the original letters. I can imagine this being used to automatically mark bad addresses if a letter is returned without additional context, but its main purpose is probably to route the letter - and any attachments, like other letters - to the appropriate agent. To support a workflow not unlike the one described above, it is requested that the unique number that identifies the letter be left unobscured. This way OCR can do its job, deliverability issues can be flagged with minimal human involvement, and replies to letters can be put in front of the right person without creating too much organizational overhead.

ryandrake 2y ago
But OP was not planning on returning the letter, so it would never be scanned. I think the BBC could have solved this preemptively, by simply making the letter say "Please do not write below this line, if you are returning the letter."
- elcomet 2y ago
  Why would they waste ink to print this ? If he doesn't return the letter, then it doesn't matter...
- DonsDiscountGas 2y ago
  Or it's a template that they use for a lot of things, many of which are intended to be returned, and nobody took the step to remove it since there is no harm in leaving it. Also: > Replies to letters are of course common whether they're expressly requested or not.

yapyap 2y ago

I assume it’s just lazyness

robaato 2y ago

Shades of UK comedian Joe Lycett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gkiw7zpULo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gkiw7zpULo

appplication 2y ago

This feels like what arguing with GPT-2 is like

satisfice 2y ago

The people at the BBC have failed the Turing test.

remram 2y ago

What does the full letter look like? They only posted a picture of the Santander one. Is there really no space for writing in, anywhere on that letter, above the line?

aaronharnly 2y ago
The author shares the full letter (in fact an archive of many years of letters!) on the homepage at http://www.bbctvlicence.com/ http://www.bbctvlicence.com/

justinclift 2y ago

Seems like a series of letters sent by someone with cognitive difficulties? Not really sure what the point of them is, other than documenting some of the weird stuff people doing customer service find themselves responding to. > Having kept all my TVL/BBC envelopes ... Well, that's a thing.

account42 2y ago
> Seems like a series of letters sent by someone with cognitive difficulties? No, just someone who isn't a complete NPC.

totetsu 2y ago

What was the thinking behind making a de facto compulsory licence fee for something that is available to everyone anyway? And then having a big annoying system for enforcing and investigating payments? Why was this seen as preferable to just paying for public television out of tax revenue?

grahamj 2y ago

below the line

Pinus 2y ago

Random association: Somewhere, I saw "leaves the top third of the first page blank without being asked to do so" as a sign that the person you are recruiting as a spy already works for the opposition. Maybe that goes for the bottom of the page as well. =)

Dilettante_ 2y ago
Now I'm curious: Why leave the top third of the first page blank? For spy stuff?
- Pinus 2y ago
  My guess would be that he opposition trained their agents to leave space on the first page of their reports for archive file numbers, estimates of source reliability, notices about which consumers the information has been shared with, that sort of thing. (This was probably around 1950-1960 or so, so everything on paper, probably often handwritten.)

drcongo 2y ago

> To return an enquiry letter to TV licensing, simply return it. Some strong Scarfolk energy here.

matthewfelgate 2y ago

Reading this correspondence gives me a little PTSD about every time I have to deal with one of these bureaucratic organisations.

6510 2y ago

It allows the sender to confirm they did indeed send the document. (As opposed to someone else) I imagine they just slap it onto everything as a kind of Vogon poetry.

dusted 2y ago

On the surface, this absurdity is entertaining, but it's scary, like, proper actual _SCARY_ because the lack of.. sense, is so all encompassing. It tells the story of how it's simply impossible to get beyond the surface, beyond the dummy front. It reveals that there is no sense to be found. For a TV station, it's not _THAT_ bad, but this type of senselessness is all around us, in large companies, in government systems, in hospitals and on construction sites.. It's a cancer in modern society that has unseen, but grave consequences. This is how we will eventually manage to eradicate ourselves, and in a way, we've deserved it, because we allowed it to happen for so long. (Yes, I spoke with an ISP lately, it brings out the best in me)