CCTS: Rogers received the most complaints about telecom services last year

Rogers Communications Inc. has become Canada’s most complained-about service provider, according to the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services’ (CCTS) annual report released on Tuesday – a first for the company in the agency’s 15-year history. From Aug. 1, 2022, to July 31, 2023, the CCTS accepted more than 14,617 complaints against 315 participating service providers, 20 per cent of which were about Rogers. BCE Inc.’s Bell Canada and Telus Corp. followed behind, making up 16 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. The biggest complaints against Rogers centered around disclosure issues, billing errors, and credits or refunds not being applied. Quality of service and the complete loss of services were other major issues raised by the major telecom’s customers. “Customers are experiencing significant service performance problems, and outage complaints are on the rise,” said the CCTS in a media release accompanying the report. It noted a 93 per cent increase in reported issues of complete loss of services among wireless customers and a 48 per cent increase among internet customers compared to the previous year. The commission also noted that complaints about incorrect roaming charges doubled for the second year in a row. When considering the big three telcos and their flanker brands, the CCTS highlighted a “significant amount of industry consolidation” this year. According to the report, the three national groups accounted for 81 per cent of all accepted complaints this year, up from 72 per cent last year. Rogers and its associated brands made up 36 per cent, the Bell group made up 25 per cent, and the Telus group made up 20 per cent. Of all the complaints received, 28,821 issues were raised – 15,853 of them were related to wireless services, 7,421 were related to internet services, and 2,894 were related to television services. Overall, 11,379 involved billing issues, a slight decrease from last year’s 11,465; while 8,605 were about service delivery issues, a substantial uptick from last year’s 7,855. Of those involving wireless services, 6,919 complaint issues were about billing, 4,782 were about contract disputes, and 3,451 were about service delivery. Meanwhile, service delivery was the main complaint issue for internet services, with 3,028; followed by 2,480 about billing; and 1,655 about contract disputes. The CCTS found 48 breaches of the wireless code, down from last year’s 65. Shaw Communications and Virgin Plus saw increases in violations this year of 60 per cent and 18.2 per cent, respectively. Bell, Koodo, Freedom Mobile, Telus, Videotron, Fido, and Rogers all decreased in violations. The commission also found eight breaches of the Internet Code this year, down from 22 last year. Three violations were by Telus, down from last year’s 11; two came from both Rogers and Cogeco Inc.; and one by Virgin Plus. Pointing to the increase in billing and roaming disputes for wireless customers, as well as the increase in complaints of total loss of service, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and its executive director John Lawford released a statement telling Canadian consumers not to trust their wireless providers. “Canadian consumers must now protect themselves against their wireless provider,” said Lawford. “They should verify every service charge, clarify every detail of roaming and plan for total service failure, not just trust the companies.” Lawford argued that the increased complaint issues about billing issues and contract disputes are “driven by aggressive or unclear sales practices as well as increasing complexity of contracts and financing of cellphones.” He added, “companies must do more to explain, in advance, the material costs of each cellphone plan and take proactive steps to simplify billing and contracts and action credits to consumers.” – Reporting by Phalen Tynes-MacDonald at pcreed@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca.

CCTS: Rogers received the most complaints about telecom services last year

News | January 17, 2024

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