Bell takes issue of alleged customer slamming from Primus to commission

Bell Canada is alleging that Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc. and other local service providers are switching customers over to their service without having first received proper consent. The practice is known as slamming and the incumbent telephone company wants the CRTC to intervene by ordering Primus Canada and the other offending carriers to stop the practice. "Ultimately what we’re saying to the CRTC here is they have to take very quick and very decisive action to indicate to the industry and to consumers that this type of behaviour won’t be tolerated," Bell Canada’s chief of regulatory affairs Mirko Bibic tells Network Letter. The company’s December 12 application reads, "Bell Canada requests that the commission require Primus to cease its slamming activity and implement measures to prevent future slamming activity. If this relief cannot be directly imposed on Primus, the company requests that the relief be imposed through a direction to any local exchange carrier (LEC) providing local services to Primus." (See box on page 7 for a list of relief.) The issue came to light in September when an increasing number of customers called Bell indicating that their local service had been switched to another provider without consent. Bell retained the services of Saine Marketing to conduct an investigation of the situation through interviews with 142 of the 279 customers who had reinitiated service with Bell after being switched to another provider. "Of the 142 individuals who were successfully interviewed, Saine’s analysis indicated a high level of confidence that 72 individuals have had their local service transferred from Bell Canada without the customer providing their authorization. Of the 72 customers who had been slammed, the service provider with the most instances was Primus, with 35 slamming complaints," reads Bell’s Part VII application. Primus Canada refutes the claims presented by Bell in its application. The company says the allegations are false and that it plans to respond to the application in a filing to the commission. The problem is likely much bigger than the small number of cases being presented in the application, says Bibic. While he wouldn’t venture a guess on the potential size of the problem on a national scale, this "is but the thin edge of the wedge," he states. "I think there is a lot more of this going on in our territory than even the discrete examples we provided in the application would indicate….Of course some people may never call us, some people may decide not to return, some don’t want to admit they were slammed, and some people will go and get reconnected through Bell World rather than calling us," explains Bibic. Slamming used to be a common practice in the long-distance business when the commission opened up the toll market to competition in the early 1990s. This year, the CRTC adopted new rules with respect to acceptable methods of obtaining customer authorization (Decision 2005-15). "At the end of the day it’s the consumer that’s harmed and the competitive process because consumers…get pretty frustrated," Bibic says. "They lose faith in the industry; they lose faith in the providers, including Bell who has done nothing wrong. So, that’s why I’m hoping the commission takes decisive action." Bibic suggests that there is an even more nefarious practice emerging in the competitive environment where competitors are telling customers they have no choice but to switch local service providers. He adds that competitors’ customer service representatives (CSRs) are even resorting to telling customers that the regulator has taken away certain geographic markets from the ILECs and awarded them to competitors. The competitors are in turn telling customers that they have to switch. "That’s not slamming in the sense that the customer is agreeing to the transfer and does realize they will be transferred, but they are transferring under false pretenses," Bibic tells Network Letter. "There’s all kinds of statements that a competitor’s CSR might say So, we’re gathering the evidence." He adds there might be an application, requesting relief from this type of activity as well. Network Letter will have more on this in an upcoming issue when Primus Canada files its response to the commission this week. Relief Requested Against Primus’ ActivitiesThat there be expedited hearing of the matter; That Primus be required, either directly or as a condition of receiving services from any LEC, to implement measures to eliminate slamming conduct by its employees and agents, including, but not limited to: mandatory training of personnel on the requirements for proper local service transfers, tracking of authorizations provided by customers transferring local service to Primus, and mandatory scripts to obtain authorizations and order confirmations; That Primus be required, either directly or as a condition of receiving services from any LEC, to obtain customer authorizations to transfer local service pursuant to the methods set out in Decision 2005-15, retain the authorization records and produce them upon reasonable request by a LEC or other party That Primus be required, either directly or as a condition of receiving services from any LEC, to report to the commission quarterly on the measures taken to eliminate slamming activity by its employees and the effectiveness of the measures; and That Primus be required, either directly or as a condition of receiving services from any LEC, to provide evidence of valid authorization or order confirmation with any local service request to transfer local service from another LSP

Bell takes issue of alleged customer slamming from Primus to commission

News | December 21, 2005

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