Telecom complaints commission says wireless contracts are the biggest irritation
Canada’s telecom complaint commission saw a 73 per cent increase in grievances in the six-month period ending in January as wireless service contracts emerged as the single-biggest issue among consumers.
The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services’s mid-term report for 2017-18 showed it handled 6,849 complaints - up from 3,955 a year earlier - with many of the complaints addressing several issues.
Wireless contracts with missing or misleading contract terms were identified as the biggest issue, being called out 1,023 times - up from 470 a year earlier.
Commissioner Howard Maker said in an interview that missing or misleading contract terms is always one of the top two issues brought to the CCTS, but this year wireless contracts were cited far more often than any other.
“The answer, I think, relates the complexity of the wireless business in terms of how the service is sold, how it’s delivered and how it’s received,” he said.
“I think it’s also the competitive nature of the wireless market. Every provider is trying to compete with everybody else
for the elusive subscriber and you see new marketing plans and promotions every day.”
Ideally, the wireless service providers would make sure front-line staff fully understand the promotions, and their implications for consumers, and that marketing and regulate information about plans is clear, he said.
“In a competitive market, sometimes that’s hard to keep up with that stuff. That’s why I think you see more of this in wireless than you do in other businesses,” Maker said.
In total, the complaints commission received 6,849 complaints against 139 service providers over the August to January period.
Bell Canada accounted for 2,275 of the complaints (33 per cent), followed by Rogers Communications Inc. with 707 (10 per cent) and Telus Corp. with 511 (7.5 per cent).
The overall increase in filings comes amid several developments that shook up the telecom industry over the six-month period from August 2017 to January 2018.
Social media posts flagged numerous consumer complaints in December, when Canada’s major wireless service providers heavily discounted some of their plans, as they battled get customers to sign up contract subscriptions.