The IT Nerd

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services or CCTS has released its annual report which you can read here. But if you don’t have time to read the report, here’s the highlights.

• The commission accepted  23,647 complaints. This covers all telco services such as phone, wireless, TV, Internet.
• Rogers leads the way in a bad way with 6485 of those complaints being attributed to them. Another fun fact is that this is also a 16.6 per cent increase of last year.
• Telus received 4904 complaints this year. That’s a 78 per cent increase from last year.
• Bell had complaints 3966, which is a slight drop from last year at 0.2 per cent.
• Freedom Mobile had 940 complaints which accounts for a 6.2 per cent increase from last year.

That kind of implies that Canadians as a whole are not happy with Canadian telcos. But Rogers and TELUS really need to step up their game as TELUS had a substantial increase in complaints year over year. Rogers had a significant increase as well. That doesn’t mean Bell can rest on the fact that they had a slight decrease. Clearly they have work to do. And Freedom isn’t exactly home free either as their complaints increased as well.

Hopefully Canadian telcos pay attention to this and up their respective games when it comes to customer service so that their customers are much happier than they are right now.

A new report from the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) reveals how well service providers have fulfilled their obligations to remain in good standing with the CCTS, Canada’s national telecom and TV industry ombuds. The 2024 Compliance Report Cards summarize providers’ compliance with specific requirements that include informing their customers about the CCTS’ free and impartial service, following the rules of CCTS’ complaint-handling process, paying required fees, and sharing necessary financial information with the CCTS.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) requires all Canadian telecom and licensed TV service providers to participate in the CCTS and to comply with all CCTS requirements. The CRTC recently reminded the industry about its responsibility to inform customers that the CCTS can help resolve issues, and expressed concern that Canadians are not being made aware of the CCTS effectively.

Highlights of the CCTS Compliance Report Cards:

28% of audited service providers had no information about the CCTS on their websites. The CCTS engaged with these providers to make their websites compliant with the requirements. The report cards also noted that 43% of audited provider websites with a search function did not return search results for the CCTS, down from 52% of audited providers last year. All service providers the CCTS had previously flagged for repeated non-compliance with the search function requirement were compliant this year.

Service providers must not penalize or charge a customer fees for submitting a complaint. The report cards confirm one case in which a service provider threatened to remove a bill credit because the customer filed a CCTS complaint. The CCTS treats cases of a service provider making threats or taking action to impair a customer’s right to submit a complaint to the CCTS as instances of major non-compliance. We worked quickly to inform the service provider that its actions were not allowed and the provider agreed not to remove the credit.

Better follow-through needed on complaint resolutions and Investigation Findings: The CCTS’ Mid-Year Report indicated that the CCTS resolved or issued Investigation Findings in over 10,000 complaints from August 1, 2024 to January 31, 2025. During that six-month period, the CCTS confirmed nine instances of service providers failing to implement resolutions to which they had agreed, or to implement remedies the CCTS required in an Investigation Finding. In all cases, the CCTS worked with these providers to fix the issues and ensure the customers obtained the required remedies.

The CCTS regularly engages with and educates phone, TV and internet service providers about their obligations. To help support provider compliance with the rules, the CCTS has provided many resources that explain and provide guidance on how to adhere to these requirements.

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) released its Mid-Year Report today, highlighting its continuing high rate of successfully resolving complaints received from Canadian phone, TV and internet customers, despite seeing a 12% year-over-year increase in the number of complaints.

Surprisingly, TELUS accounts for the highest number of CCTS complaints, with 19.7% of all CCTS complaints during the reporting period. Rogers accounts for 18.7% of all complaints accepted, followed by Bell at 16.7%. Shaw Communications, acquired by Rogers in April 2023, is one of the five most complained-about providers for the first time in the last five years with 9.6% of complaints received, driven by an increase in complaints about set-top box rental equipment and contract issues. Fido rounds out the top five at 6.8% of complaints.

The most common billing issues are incorrect charges on monthly bills, not receiving promised credits or refunds, and unexpected increases to monthly bills for phone, TV and internet services.

Canadians complained most often about their wireless service, representing 50% of all issues raised during the reporting period. Internet service accounts for 26% of all issues. TV issues represent 15% of all issues raised. During the reporting period, TV issues increased by 49%.

Canadians should take some time to read this report as it will highlight the issues that your telco has so that you can make decisions about which telco they should be be with.

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) has published its comprehensive 2022-23 Annual Report. And this report is very bad news for Rogers as they number one when it comes to complaints. But there are other issues that the report highlights:

Among the highlights in this year’s Annual Report:   

1. Rogers takes the lead in consumer complaints: For the first time in the CCTS’ 15-year history, Rogers leads the list of most complained-about service providers, with approximately 20% of 14,617 complaints accepted by the CCTS. Disclosure issues, billing errors and complaints about promised credits or refunds not being applied are the top issues raised by Rogers’ customers. Rogers’ customers also raised more issues about the quality of their telecom services and complete loss of their telecom services. Bell and TELUS follow Rogers on the list of most complained-about service providers.  
2. Customers are experiencing significant service performance problems, and outage complaints are on the rise: Quality of services remain a top concern for customers. Notably, complaints from customers experiencing a complete loss of service increased – with 93% more issues reported by wireless customers and 48% more issues from Internet customers.  
3. Contracts are unclear and missing important information: Customers continue to raise concerns about the clarity of information provided by service providers in their contracts, promotions, and related documents. Each year, telecom and TV customers raise issues about ‘mismatches’ between what they expect to receive and what’s received, not being aware of contract details or promotion details and providing consent to account changes.
4. Complaints about roaming charges doubled for the second consecutive year: This increase reflects instances where customers report incorrect charges from their service provider for use of wireless services outside of a defined local coverage
5. Emerging trends — cancellation and porting issues: This year, customers raised more issues with leaving or switching their service providers because they were unable to cancel their wireless or internet services or unable to port (transfer) their phone services to another provider. In some cases, this was due to the provider’s refusal, or because of system errors.

The fact that Rogers has had such an increase in complaints to take it to number one in that category isn’t good for the telco. And it matches things that I have been hearing about Rogers lately. All of which are negative. Clearly they have work to do when it comes to serving their customer base.

Besides Rogers coming out on the wrong end of this report, roaming issues are clearly an issue. Along with the fact that customers feel like they lack the info that they need to make decisions about their telco services. There’s a lot here and hopefully Canadian telcos are reading this and taking this report seriously. Because right now Canadian telcos aren’t being painted in the best light because of this report. Not that anyone in Canada is shocked by that.

The annual report from the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) is out, and if you’re Bell, Rogers or Fido, the news is bad for you. Out of 42,000 complaints covering all aspects of the telecom industry, here’s how things broke down:

• Bell represented 20 percent of complaints
• Rogers was in second with 13.9 percent of complaints
• Fido in third with 10 percent of complaints

If you’re wondering where TELUS is, the were at 7 percent of complaints.

The most complained about category was wireless services. The second most complained about category is the internet. TV was in third place. I’ve linked the report above and I encourage you to give it read.

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) mid year report is out. And as usual, it makes for interesting reading. Here’s the key points:

• Complaints are up 6%
• Bell accounts for 20.3% of all complaints
• Rogers accounts 13.2% of all complaints
• Fido accounts 10.3% of all complaints
• TELUS accounts 7.1% of all complaints
• Freedom Mobile accounts 6.5% of all complaints

Here’s where things get interesting. When you look at the percentage change over the last report, here’s where the above carriers rank:

• Complaints about Bell are down 17.3%
• Complaints about Rogers are up 23.9%
• Complaints about Fido are up 45.3%
• Complaints about TELUS are down 7.5%
• Complaints about Freedom Mobile are up 1.9%

So Bell really improved in terms of dropping the number of complaints that they had, but they are still number one in terms of complaints. That highlights that while they are headed in the right direction, they still have a lot of work to do. And they didn’t waste any time in terms of spinning things to make themselves look good:

Rogers needs to be concerned seriously concerned as both Rogers and Fido saw significant increases in complaints. Clearly they have a lot of work to do as they are trending in the wrong direction. TELUS continues to have their complaints trend downloads which is good for them as they tend to never really be attention grabbing when these reports come out. At least not in a negative way. I really don’t have much to say about Freedom Mobile, except that now that Rogers wants to buy Shaw, their 1.9% increase in complaints may skyrocket.

The report makes for some good reading and I would put some time into reading it to see if you are with the right telco.

It’s that time of year again. The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services has released their 2019-2020 annual report. Here’s the highlights:

• Consumers filed 15,868 complaints which is a 19% decrease in consumer complaints
• CCTS continues to successfully resolve nearly 9 out of 10 complaints
• Complaint frequency by service (highest to lowest): wireless, internet, television, local phone
• Most common complaints: Billing followed by disclosure issues
• Wireless Code breaches increased 16% this year

As for the big three telcos:

• Bell had 37% of disclosure issues, but only saw a 4% YoY increase.
• Rogers had 13% of disclosure issues, seeing a 39% jump in complaints
• Telus took 7% of disclosure issues but its YoY change was at 0%

And as for other telcos:

• Koodo saw a 0% YoY change.
• Videotron with 7% of disclosure issues and a 54% increase YoY. 
• Fido saw a 45% jump in YoY disclosure issues, taking 6% of total disclosure issues.

I linked to the report above and it makes for an interesting read.

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) has served up its Mid-Year Report and it shows a 12% drop in complaints. That sounds good on the surface. But let’s dig into this some more. The companies that are responsible for this are:

• Cogeco -75%
• Bell -26.3%
• TELUS -6.7%

And Bell couldn’t wait to trumpet this news to the world seeing as they have been known as having absolutely horrific customer service at times:

However, there were increases. Complaints from Fido and Rogers increased by 29% and 6% respectively. Which isn’t good for Rogers and Fido. And I am pretty sure that Rogers and Fido won’t be promoting these results.

And other highlights include:

• “Disclosure issues” and “incorrect charges” were the most complained-about problems, making up 26% of all reported issues.
• Breaches of the Wireless Code decreased from 61 to 46, breaches of the Television Service Provider Code increased by 4 to a total of 5, and breaches of the Deposit and Disconnection Code, increased from 0 to 3.

So while there are things that have improved, clearly there’s still work to be done as Rogers and Fido clearly need to pull up their socks here.