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Dead German poet gets TV demands

The celebrated German poet Friedrich Schiller has joined Noel Edmonds in the ranks of celebrities not paying their TV licence fees. Herr Schiller has a better excuse, however, having been dead for over 200 years.

The BBC reports that the German fee collection agency, GEZ, mistakenly sent letters to “Mr Friedrich Schiller” - which arrived at a primary school bearing his name. With the annual fee of about 200 euros (£157) unpaid since 1805 Schiller would owe more than 40,000 euros.

GEZ issued an apology, admitting its mistake. A GEZ spokeswoman said: “We have to deal with such a huge amount of data, that something like this can happen, and the name Friedrich Schiller is not so unusual that it stood out as strange.”

The reminders came despite the fact that the headteacher of the Friedrich Schiller Primary School had written to GEZ stating that “the addressee is no longer in a position to listen to the radio or watch television”.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .