The 7,451 complaints accepted by the CCTS between August 1, 2022 and January 31, 2023 represent a 12% increase over the same period last year. Of that number, exactly two-thirds were resolved at the pre-investigation stage, even before the federal agency had to go any further. In total, an estimated 88% of complaints were resolved to the consumer’s satisfaction.
A complaint can reveal several problems, it is specified that consumers reported 13,962. As usual, wireless services were the most denounced with 7,616 problems, or 54.5% of the total. For this specific statistic, it’s down 0.9% from the previous year. The Internet is the second most denounced service, with 3663 or 26.2% of reported problems.
Since 2007, Bell has been the source of the most complaints to the CCTS. With global revenues of 24.1 billion in 2022, 9.9 million customers for its wireless services and 9.3 million for its internet, cable television and telephone services, the company founded in 1880 is by far the most major telecommunications provider in Canada.
The peak for Bell was reached in 2018-2019 with 5879 complaints per year. At that time, Bell was collecting about 36% of the complaints submitted to the CCTS. These statistics have since steadily declined. For the six months from August 2022, Bell received 1,110 complaints, down 6.1% from the previous year, or 14.9% of total complaints.
Number three in Canada, Rogers, followed the opposite path. Since 2019, when the company received only 9% of complaints, its balance sheet has steadily worsened. It now receives 17.4% of complaints, or 1294, an increase of 29% or 294 complaints over the previous year. In 2022, Rogers earned revenues of 15.4 billion, for 10.6 million customers for wireless and 1.5 million for cable television.
Much of the increase in complaints against Rogers is related to a single event: the nationwide outage of July 8, 2022. In total, the CCTS accepted 187 complaints related to this event, “brought by customers who do not ‘Were not satisfied with the proactive credits announced by Rogers to its customers on July 12, 2022 and who were initially unable to resolve their complaint directly with Rogers,’ the report explains.
In addition, the number two telecommunications company in Canada, Telus, experienced a marked increase in one year. While the company only received 8% of complaints the previous year, it now ranks third with 13%. Telus had revenues of 18.3 billion in 2022 and has 9.7 million subscribers to its wireless services, 2.4 million to its internet service and 1.3 million to television.
As for Telus’ discount subsidiary, Koodo, it also saw its share of complaints increase considerably, from 5.7% to 9%.
The main complaint that consumers have of providers is for so-called “disclosure issues”, which make up 12.4% of the total. These include contracts that do not match the agreement, which is the source of 9.3% of all problems.
The other big complaint is intermittent or inadequate service, reported in 12.3% of issues. Incorrect charges, which represent 11.7% of cases, are the third most important topic.
The CCTS has also fined providers – they are not identified – for 36 confirmed violations of the Wireless Code. Note that consumers had filed complaints for 505 alleged violations.
In 14 of the 36 breaches, the supplier is blamed for not giving at least 14 days reasonable notice for a disconnection. In eight Code violations, a hard or electronic copy of the contract was not provided, or the contract did not contain all of the required information.
It is noted that 434 service providers are now members of the CCTS, including 14 newcomers. Nearly four out of five, or 346, have not been the subject of any complaint.
