Canadian Telecom Complaints Soar To A New Record

A record number of Canadians complained to a federal regulator about the country’s telecoms in areas such as billing and service delivery, a new report shows.

Nearly 19,300 people lodged complaints with the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services in the 12 months to July 31, a 35 percent jump from the previous year, according to its annual report.

The rise in complaints is partly attributable to it being the commission’s first full year of accepting grievances about television, it said. Bell Canada accounted for 30.5 percent of all complaints, followed by Rogers with 9.5 percent, and Telus with 8.3 percent of total.

The largest number of complaints, 41 percent, were about wireless services such as billing and contract disputes, the data show. Internet delivery issues comprised a quarter of complaints, the commission said.

Bell Canada was the target of the most billing complaints, about 38 percent, followed by Rogers Communications Inc. and Cogeco Connecxion Inc. each at about 9 percent.

“In many of the billing-related complaints we see, we find that customers have been charged a fee for their monthly services that is different from what they were expecting,” the commission said. “Although some of these cases are the result of simple errors, we have found that many can be attributed to promotional prices or discounts not being applied or not being clearly described as time-limited.”

This lack of clarity including disclosure issues rose 21 percent in the 2018-19 period after a 125 percent leap in the previous year, the data show. Again, Bell Canada led in the number of these types of complaints with 39 percent followed by Rogers at 10 percent and Telus Communications Co. at 7 percent, according to the report.

“Many of these could have been avoided by ensuring that clear, concise and accurate information was provided to customers,” the commission said.

Other customers reported being charged for services after cancelling them and some say they were charged for services that weren’t installed, the commission said.

The report recounts a customer with an undisclosed provider being offered unlimited internet usage, then being charged $400 in overage fees over four months. When the commission investigated, it found a phone call recording of the customer requesting unlimited service and the agent promising it. However, the plan added to the customer’s account had a 50 gigabyte a month limit on it. The commission arranged for the charges to be reimbursed.

More than 90 per cent of the complaints to the commission are resolved, it said. But it said it doesn’t necessarily seek to find guilt.

“We are often asked if providers use misleading sales practices,” the commission said. “Determining whether something is misleading is a determination of intent, which we are not positioned to make.”

However, the commission did note that the above case raises legitimate concerns about the intent of the provider or its willingness to honour commitments made by its staff.

“Either way,” the commission said, “our objective is to investigate and make sure that the customer receives what the customer was promised.”

Bell said that it has some way to go but the company has invested significantly in customer service.

“CCTS complaints were up for all national carriers but Bell had the lowest increase among major providers,” the company said. “In fact, Bell’s share of total CCTS complaints declined for the fourth year in a row – also the best record among our top competitors.”

Eric Agius, senior vice president, customer care, at Rogers, said in a statement: “We have the fewest complaints per subscriber of any national carrier and we are the only with a drop in complaints over the last seven years.”―Financial Post