Shaw to CRTC: How to end dodgy door-to-door sales
GATINEAU, QUE. — Shaw Communications Inc. says its federal regulator can best protect Canadians from problem sales practices by banning telecom companies from using outside contractors to do their door-to-door sales.
A delegation from the Calgary-based television, internet and wireless services company told a regulatory hearing on Friday that evidence doesn’t show misleading or aggressive sales practices are an industry-wide problem.
They acknowledged there are some issues and improvements to address but said most of the complaints on the public record are predominantly about a “small number” of the industry’s largest players.
Similar comments have been made by other delegations to a week of government-ordered public hearings by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the industry’s federal regulator.
Shaw senior vice-president Paul Cowling told CRTC commissioners on the final day of hearings in Gatineau, Que., that they should take “targeted, focused” actions that don’t penalize smaller competitors or those that have good practices.
Cowling said that door-to-door sales by nonemployees under contract have resulted in the most serious practices revealed by media reports, the industry’s complaint resolution mechanism and the CRTC’s own hearing process.
“Focusing a recommendation or remedy on door-to-door sales would address the most significant area of risk and consumer vulnerability,” Cowling said. “We have proposed a prohibition on third-party sales.”
Like its competitors, Shaw does use door-to-door sales but they are by employees rather than outside contractors.