Major non-compliance issues decreased, insufficient information sharing increased in 2021: CCTS

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) issued its 2021 compliance monitoring report on Monday. It found 2,400 alleged violations arising from 15,000 complaints against participating service providers (PSPs). The three most common breaches were PSPs incorrectly informing the agency the complaint had been resolved; incomplete information from the PSPs; and objections on merit, which is not permitted under CCTS rules. "While the 2021 CMR reports that these major non-compliance issues decreased overall, these incidents remain a priority for the CCTS as they delay a customer’s access to redress," the CCTS said in a release. At the same time, the CCTS report said, there was a "considerable increase in compliance breaches related to PSPs incorrectly informing the CCTS that a complaint has been resolved directly with the customer," the report said, as well as "almost double the number of compliance breaches flagged in which PSPs did not submit complete responses to complaints they had been unable to resolve with the customer." When a complaint is filed with the CCTS, the company must sign up as a PSP. In 2021, it signed up 18 of 22 firms it determined should be PSPs. Four carriers – Northern Rural Networks, TekData, VOIS Inc. and Haute-Vitesse.com – were referred to the CRTC for non-compliance. TekData has since joined as a PSP. Haute-Vitesse is subject to investigation by the CRTC. Two commission decisions last year found that seven service providers failed to sign up when required to do so. Five have now joined and the other two are either defunct or not offering services within the CCTS mandate. In another decision, the regulator fined MySignal.ca Solutions Inc. $15,000 and order the company to join CCTS within 60 days. CCTS says this has not happened and referred the case back to the CRTC. The commission has also started a show cause proceeding against Net2Web Inc. for not signing up with the CCTS. Mutually accepted resolutions, recommendations and decisions from the CCTS are binding on the PSPs. For 2021, the agency discovered only 16 breaches of the requirement, all related to resolutions. This is a decrease from previous years. “We are pleased to note that once we notified the PSPs, all of them rectified the non-compliance,” the report states. “Where a resolution was not implemented, the PSPs indicated it was as a result of human error or other issues beyond their control, e.g. postal issues.” In the past five years two firms have been kicked out of the CCTS for non-compliance with recommendations: SkyChoice Communications Inc. and AllCore Communications Inc. Last year there was one incident where a PSP threatened to disconnect a customer’s service because a complaint had been lodged with the CCTS, a violation of agency protocols. 4pairless Communications Inc. said it did not actually terminate service and the CCTS said it was working with the company to better explain the rules. CCTS investigated 20 allegations in 2021 that PSPs asked the customer to withdraw the complaint and found three cases had merit. In two of the cases, the PSPs said they didn’t realize the practice was forbidden; the third case was related to 4pairless threatening to cut service to a customer. The agency investigated 174 cases where PSPs claimed to have resolved disputes without actually doing so. It found this had occurred 52 times. A PSP may object to a complaint because of lateness in filing or incomplete documentation on the part of the complainant. Some firms also issue objections based on the merit of the complaint, a breach of CCTS rules. There were 309 objection breaches in 2021, a tiny increase from the 301 violations in 2020. The CCTS has a public awareness plan that PSPs must follow so consumers know how to initiate a complaint. It audited 58 PSPs: the 25 firms that generated the most complaints in 2019-2020, five PSPs branded as non-compliant in 2021 and 28 selected at random. Ten PSPs were fully compliant with the website requirements of the public awareness plan with a further 22 complying after notification from the CCTS. Thirteen others said they are currently working on revising their web pages. Two are considered non-compliant and the CCTS has not heard from the remaining 10. In November Maple Call Inc. was suspended from the agency for failure to pay its fees over the past two years. The CCTS has referred the issue to the CRTC for further action. –Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca

Major non-compliance issues decreased, insufficient information sharing increased in 2021: CCTS

News | August 15, 2022

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Major non-compliance issues decreased, insufficient information sharing increased in 2021: CCTS

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