Rogers’ financing plans ‘might be seen as a problem’: CCTS

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) said Wednesday that new phone financing plans introduced by Rogers Communications Inc. may run afoul of the Wireless Code. “The fact that customers are not free to shop around for a new plan while maintaining monthly payments of their device after the 24-month contract period ends might be seen as a problem,” a CCTS spokesperson wrote in an email to The Wire Report, while stressing that the CCTS deals with individual complaints in relation to the code. The Edge Financing plans, which became available Wednesday, allow consumers to put no money down on a phone, and pay it off over a period of two or, crucially, three years in equal monthly instalments. “Offering our customers three-year device financing means lower monthly payments -- it’s the right thing to do for our customers,” said Rogers’ wireless president Brent Johnson in a press release. A customer would sign up for a phone financing plan separately from a service plan. But should a consumer choose to switch carriers after the completion of a two year wireless service arrangement, they cannot continue to pay off the phone financing in monthly installments for the final year -- they would have to pay it off outright, according to the company. In other words, a customer financing a phone over three years with Rogers with a two-year service contract, could not switch carriers after two years without paying off the full price of the phone. This arrangement, said Tamir Israel of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa (CIPPIC), amounts to reproducing the type of three-year lock-ins that the Wireless Code was partially designed to do away with. Israel said the new plans amounted to a “direct” code violation. “It raises the same anti-competitive concerns as the three year lock-in plans that were prevalent at the time the two-year contract limit was initially introduced,” he wrote in an email to The Wire Report. The Wireless Code stipulates that wireless providers cannot charge a cancellation fee to any customer after a period of 24 months. The idea is that by allowing customers to re-enter the market place every two years, the policy “contributes to a more dynamic marketplace and allows customers to take advantage of competitive offers more easily and more frequently,” according to a CRTC spokesperson, who declined to comment on the new Rogers financing plans specifically. Rogers said the plans don’t include a cancellation fee. Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) executive director John Lawford said that the new plans amounted to “something like a chain of not-lined up commitments. You’ll have an extra year of financing after the contract is over, and that will probably lead you to re-sign the service agreement,” amounting to the effective reintroduction of three year contracts. “I would think that the CRTC would be well within their rights to do something expedited on this,” he said. The CRTC, for its part, declined to comment on the new plans, only pointing to the relevant language in the code itself. “We’re confident our new device financing options are compliant with the Code,” Rogers said in a statement. — With reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Rogers’ financing plans ‘might be seen as a problem’: CCTS

News | July 10, 2019

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Rogers’ financing plans ‘might be seen as a problem’: CCTS

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