The doorbell rang during dinner. I got up from the table, opened the door, and looked into the eyes of a man I didn't know. He showed me his badge. He asked me some questions. He jotted a couple of things down. Then he said "auf Wiedersehen" and slipped into the darkness whence he'd come. An uneasy feeling seized me. Did I say something self-incriminating? I could have refused to answer. I could have shut the door in his face. But wouldn't that have aroused suspicion? Wouldn't that have been worse?

The stranger wasn't a cop, criminal investigator, or private dick. He belonged to a lower taxonomic order, closer to creeping and crawling creatures. He was an agent of the hated GEZ, the acronym for the Gebühreneinzugszentrale (Fee Collection Center) of Germany's public television and radio broadcasters, namely ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio. Heavily restricted from running commercial advertising, they're financed largely with a fee paid by owners of broadcast-receiving devices such as television sets, radios and (since January 1, 2007) computers with Internet access. The GEZ collected 7.29 billion euros in 2006, which is more than the company that sponsors this blog paid me in 2006 and 2007 COMBINED.

The fee -- currently 17.03 euros a month for a television set, or for a television set and any combination of radio and/or computer -- is in addition to any private fees a viewer may have for cable or satellite TV. It doesn't matter if you watch public programming or not, or even if you watch the tube at all. The German government has mercifully exempted some folks from the fee, including children, welfare recipients, the blind, the deaf, and people who have been certifiably dead for five years or more (just kidding -- ALL dead people are exempt). Failure to pay can bring a fine of up to 1,000 euros.

Needless to say, resentment at the fee is high, all the more so as cash-fat public broadcasters often copy the lowbrow fare that commercial stations lure viewers with. Fee foes' ire has been further fanned by a number of recent covert-advertising and product-placement scandals involving public broadcasters. Some people, be it for reasons of principle or pocketbook, refuse to pay.

That's where the GEZ agents come in.

GEZ agents are freelancers paid on commission. The more deadbeats they collar, the more money they make. They're motivated, in other words. In most of Germany's 16 states, residents registration offices (Einwohnermeldeämter; in Germany you're required to register your place of residence with the authorities) provide names and addresses to GEZ agents, who check them against lists of people who have registered their broadcast-receiving devices. The GEZ is also said to pay private sources for names and addresses of people who, say, have bought a cable TV subscription or taken part in a TV quiz.

While GEZ agents have no legal right of entry into a home to look for unregistered receivers, they're known to use trick questions ("Have I disturbed you during the evening news?") and the psychology of fear to find out if someone "watches black" (sieht schwarz, i.e. watches television without paying the fee). Many people falsely believe that the GEZ has patrol vehicles with signal-locating equipment.

As for me, I pay the fee -- and gnash my teeth. So why the friendly visit by the GEZ? I presume the agent came to call on our new neighbors and spied an unfamiliar name along with mine on our door.

"Who's that?" he asked me.

"My wife," I replied.

The agent was disappointed -- the fee for a married couple is the same as that for a single person. He wasn't about to go quietly, though. Did we have a garden house? Or a car that we use for business? (A TV set or radio in those places is subject to an added fee.) No, we don't have a garden house, I replied. Nor do we own a car.

It's easier to dodge bullets when you're thin.