A record number of consumers have had enough, and are seekinghelp with their complaints againstCanada’s telecom giants.
I’m not talking about grievances shared with the Star, like Howard Cracower’s, who walked into a Rogers store looking for helpand walked out with a months-long, customer-service headache.
Gas station owner says no other customers complained of problems.
I’m talking about the growing army of consumers refusingto take “there’s nothing more we can do,” as a final answer, and are reaching outto a higher authority.
Canadians filed a record 20,147 complaints with the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS) between Aug. 1, 2023 and July 31, 2024, according to the organization’s annual report.
“Complaints are going up,” said CCTS commissioner Howard Maker, who joined the organization in 2008 with four staffers.The group now employs more than 100 to keep up with the grievances.
For years, Bell held top billing as Canada’s most-complained-about telecom. Rogers, however,now has thatdubious distinction.
Billing issues with wireless and internet providers top the non-profit’s complaint list.
Maker’s office saw a year-over-year31 per cent rise in wirelesscustomers reporting incorrect charges, a more than doubling in claims of missing refunds and credits, and a skyrocketing 360 per cent hike in reports of escalating monthly costs.
People, he says, are also steamed with the quality of internet service — a running concern for the past five years.
This is Maker’s last year as commissioner, in a line of work he has pursued for much of his law career starting as a complaints investigator with the Law Society of Ontario.He next joined the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario as director of investigations, and then theOmbudsman for Banking Services and Investments in a senior deputy role before being tapped to helm the CCTS.
“I can’t hold a job,” he joked during one of several conversations about the commissioner’s roleandwhat consumers can do to successfully take on the big telecoms.
This is an edited version of our discussions:
Q Let’s get to the elephant in the room. You like to say, ‘No tax dollars are harmed in the operation of CCTS,’ but the office,created by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC),is funded entirely by the telecom industry. How can the public trust your staff is holding to account the companies that pay your salaries?
People say, ‘Well, you’re bought and paid for. Why would a consumer come to you?’ And the answer is, look at how many complaints we resolve. A majority of our board directors are entirely independent of the industry.
So who do you help?
We’re focused on putting the customer in the position they should have been in if things hadn’t gone south. We want people to know that if their service provider says no, that’s not necessarily the end of the game. If it’s a problem with a bill, if it’s a problem with a repair — anything. If the company made a credit bureau reporting that’s not accurate. We have the authority to get these things fixed and it’s mandatory for the service providers to implement the fixes we tell them to make. If they don’t we can report that to the CRTC, which, as the industry regulator, has the authority to penalize service providers.
The CCTS says it helps resolve most complaintswithin 20 days and that nearly 90 per cent of its cases are ‘successfully resolved.’ What does that mean?
It means all parties are content to walk away.I don’t want to toot my own horn here, but that’s a really good record.I defy you to find something else that effective in the marketplace.
Most of the 20,000 complaints last year were dealt with informally in that the consumer and company reached an agreement that didn’t require CCTS to launch an in-depth investigation. Why?
Service providers understand that once we’re involved, somebody is looking over their shoulder. And sometimes they recognize they’ve messed up …all the research shows it’s cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to find a new one.
You’ve said service contracts can be overly technical and they shouldn’t be. If someone signs a two-year contract only to get home and realize the plan isn’t as good as they thought,is there any recourse?
Under these , there’s a trial period. You can return within the first 15 days and cancel the contract.Keep the device and packaging in good condition so they don’t have an excuse to deny you the right to return it.
What advice do you have for consumers challenging these companies?
The first place a customer needs to go when they have a problem is to the service provider to seeif they can sort it out. I like to use the online web chat.Make sure you ask for a copy of the dialogue. Or copy and paste it to a word document, though most of the reputable ones have something you can click on to get it emailed to you. You need to havesome details.It’s your evidence to bring to the table if we need to do an investigation.They’ll give you a call reference number or an interaction reference number or something like that. Jot that down. We can match up that reference number to the actual call.Andthat demonstrates that (the company) was given an opportunity to resolve the complaint.
If a customer hasn’t kept details of their efforts to resolve an issue, can CCTS still help?
The worst possible scenario is the provider says we don’t have any record of speaking to this person. So we would say, OK, start now. And then if that couldn’t be resolved, then we would take the complaint into our process and then we follow the normal course. So it’s not a deal breaker. Keeping records is a way to expedite your way through the process.”
Consumers can file a complaint with CCTS on its website at
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