Requirements, Monitoring Activities and Results

B. Monitoring activities and results

Introduction

Between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020, CCTS flagged just under 2,000 alleged compliance breaches of the Procedural Code arising in approximately 16,200 complaints. These alleged breaches were flagged by the CCTS staff during the complaint-handling process. For compliance purposes, PSPs have had the opportunity to respond to alleged breaches if the Compliance team followed up with the PSP to discuss the breaches.

The CCTS reports on trends based on what our employees encounter when they handle complaints with the dual goals of informing the general public and providing feedback to PSPs so they can remedy potential issues. Full breach reviews and one-on-one engagement with PSPs are prioritized for “major” compliance breaches. The CCTS will also engage with PSPs for lower priority breaches based on time and resources available. In order to determine the priority level of each compliance breach, the CCTS considers the following criteria:

1. The effect of non-compliance on customers;
2. The effect of non-compliance on CCTS;
3. The type of non-compliance;
4. The scale of the non-compliance (how many issues and duration of non-compliance);
5. The conduct of the PSP and whether or not they attempt to resolve the non-compliance;
6. The PSP’s state of compliance with other CCTS participation requirements; and
7. Any aggravating or mitigating factors.

While assessing the priority level of a certain breach, the CCTS will also consider whether or not the issue can be resolved through our complaint-handling process, and our Compliance team will prioritize reaching out to the PSP when it is the only way to ensure compliance. For instance, a customer being charged late payment fees while their complaint is active can be resolved by the investigator requesting that the PSP credit said charges to the customer. In comparison, a situation where a PSP has refused to implement a resolution cannot be resolved without our Compliance team reaching out to the PSP, which makes the breach of a higher priority level.

With this system, some issues are always considered high priority, and will receive follow-up as quickly as possible:

• PSP threatening a customer with a lawsuit or additional fees because of their CCTS complaint.
• PSP not fully implementing a CCTS resolution, Recommendation or Decision.
• PSP submitting false “Resolved” responses at pre-investigation.^[2]
• PSP refusing to cooperate with CCTS.

This report contains data on the main issues CCTS observed in 2020, and includes two types of data:

• General trends that have been observed in the alleged breaches; and
• Detailed data on breaches that the CCTS reviewed. This involves reviewing all communications and documentation relevant to the breach, and reaching out to the PSP for additional detailed information whenever possible.

1. Improper responses at pre-investigation: a persistent issue

In 2020, compliance with section 6.6 of the CCTS Procedural Code, which governs PSP responses to complaints at pre-investigation, remained the issue with the highest number of confirmed breaches (1,235 in total). It is important to note that at least some of the reduction in the number of breaches compared to last year’s report can be explained by the fact that the period we are reporting on is 2 months shorter than the one in the 2019 CMR^[3].

Section 6.6(a) – A clear improvement on objection breaches
PSPs can object to a complaint within 15 days of its acceptance if they believe that the CCTS should not investigate that complaint due to any of the reasons set out in the CCTS Procedural Code. In doing so, the PSP must explain the reason for the objection and provide supporting documentation. In 2020, improper objections represented approximately 15% of all breaches (20% in 2019). With improved tracking in 2020^[4], the CCTS is now able to collect additional information about the specifics of the breaches:

Due to time and resource constraints, our Compliance team was only able to reach out to a few PSPs to clearly explain what is expected of them when submitting an “Unresolved” response. While “no or late response” breaches are inherently confirmed, the CCTS Compliance team was not able to review all “incomplete” responses to identify how many of the breaches should be confirmed^[7].

For a full list of PSPs which failed to respond at the pre-investigation stage, which then triggered the escalation of the complaint to the investigation stage, see Appendix A.

2. PSPs threatening to sue or charge a customer for their CCTS complaint

The CCTS always keeps a close eye on instances of a PSP threatening a customer with charges or legal action for filing their CCTS complaint. Such circumstances warrant the highest priority level as they penalize the customer for simply exercising their right. In these cases, the CCTS informs the PSP that it is not allowed to make such threats, and asks for confirmation that the offending conduct will stop immediately. CCTS actively monitors these matters until it is confirmed that the offending conduct has ceased.

Fortunately, the CCTS did not note any incidents of this nature in 2020.

4. Implementation of resolutions, Recommendations and Decisions

The CCTS’ Compliance team always prioritizes engagement related to allegations of non-implementation of resolutions, Recommendations and Decisions, as it pertains to the CCTS’ core services.

In 2020, we were able to confirm 32 such breaches (58 in 2019).

The 32 confirmed implementation breaches in 2020 relate to 15 PSPs^[9]:

• In 29 complaints, the PSP implemented an agreed-upon resolution only after the CCTS’ intervention. In order to confirm that the resolution had been implemented, the CCTS required the PSP to provide documentation confirming the implementation.
• In 3 complaints, PSPs failed to implement a Recommendation:
  • AllCore – The CCTS was in contact with the PSP for over 3 months in order to ensure implementation. In late June 2020, the PSP finally agreed to provide the refund owed to the customer, who confirmed that they received it in July 2020.
  • Golden Rural High Speed – The CCTS was originally unable to reach the PSP to discuss the issue. After about 5 months, the PSP agreed to provide the refund to the customer. In November 2020, the customer confirmed that they received the refund.
  • SkyChoice – The CCTS has been in touch with the PSP since October 2020 to discuss implementation of the Recommendation. Our internal escalation process is ongoing until full implementation can be confirmed or enforcement action is taken against the PSP. In April 2021, SkyChoice’s participation in the CCTS was terminated by the CCTS Members for failure to comply with multiple obligations under the Participation Agreement and the Procedural Code. The matter has been referred to the CRTC for enforcement.

For alleged breaches related to implementation, the CCTS Compliance team becomes involved in order to centralize and facilitate the communications between the PSP and the customer as well as to ensure swift implementation. In 2020, we determined that the average time for implementation in all complaints flagged by CCTS staff is 2.5 months, with timeframes ranging from 1 to 8 months^[10].

A. Requirements

For the CCTS to be able to help Canadians, customers must first be aware of their right to escalate their dispute to the CCTS when their attempts to resolve their problem directly with their service provider have proven ineffective. Therefore, all PSPs must comply with the CCTS’ public awareness plan entitled “Developing Public Awareness of the CCTS” (the “PA Plan”), which outlines requirements in 4 categories.

1. CCTS notice and web site links on PSPs’ websites

PSPs must display a specific message on their website informing customers of the CCTS, including information on how to contact them. This information should be on a dedicated “complaints page” detailing the PSP’s internal complaint-handling process. Additionally, the path to this complaints page must be clearly-labelled, easy-to-find and no further than 2 clicks away from the home page.

Further, if a website has a search function, it should return a link to the complaints page when a search includes any of the following keywords: “complaint”, “dispute”, “CRTC”, “CCTS”, “commission” and “ombudsman”.

2. Customer bill messages

PSPs must include a specific message about the CCTS on customer bills. This message has to appear at least four times a year and be placed in a reasonably prominent location compared to other notices of a similar nature. Customers who do not receive bills must be informed about the CCTS by another means, such as the portal they use to purchase pre-paid time or through free text messages.

In addition, the CRTC expects PSPs that have updated their billing system since January 2011 to include a “permanent and prominent location for a standard notification about CCTS” on the PSP’s bills. The CCTS has incorporated this requirement into the PA Plan.

3. Customer notification by PSPs

PSPs must inform customers of their right of recourse to the CCTS upon failure to resolve their complaint at the second level of escalation. This means that if the second escalation agent fails to resolve the issue, they must inform the customer of the CCTS.

For PSPs which do not have an internal escalation process, customers must be informed of the CCTS by frontline agents.

Multiple contacts with different frontline agents are not considered an escalation.

4. White Pages message and text

PSPs that publish White Pages directories must include a specific message about the CCTS in the White Pages. The location of this insert should be reasonably prominent compared to notices of a similar nature. Additionally, it should be placed in a logical manner, where a customer with a potential complaint is likely to find it.

B. Monitoring activities and results

The CCTS has extended its monitoring activities to ensure that all customers have proper access to CCTS information, regardless of the size of the PSP or the region(s) in which it offers services. As a result, the 2020 PA Plan audits included PSPs in the following categories:

• The 25 PSPs that generated the most CCTS complaints, as listed in the 2018-2019 Annual Report. These PSPs represent 94% of all complaints accepted by the CCTS.
• PSPs identified as non-compliant in 2020. Throughout the year, the Compliance team engages with some PSPs for specific non-compliance issues requiring a more in-depth engagement than our monthly reviews.
• 30 randomly selected PSPs. This new category ensures that all PSPs, regardless of their size and general compliance status, can be reviewed to determine their compliance with the PA Plan requirements. All PSPs at the CCTS are assigned a “brand number”, which is used with a random number generator to determine which PSPs will be audited. If a number corresponds to a PSP already included in one of the previous categories or a PSP that does not have a website, it is replaced by another randomly generated number.

The CCTS undertakes two types of PA Plan monitoring activities, depending on the category each PSP belongs to:

1. Documentation audits. The CCTS reviews invoices, white pages and internal documents pertaining to the PSP’s complaint-handling process. These audits are reserved for the 25 PSPs that generated the most CCTS complaints, as they will impact a large portion of customers.
2. Website audits. The CCTS reviews websites of all PSPs in the 3 above-mentioned categories to ensure that all customers have access to CCTS information.

Regardless of the PSP category or monitoring activity type, the CCTS follows up with PSPs to present audit results and explain what is expected of them to come into compliance. PSPs are required to provide a response within 30 days of receiving the results, explaining how and when any identified issues will be addressed. Our Compliance team continues to follow up with PSPs until all identified issues have been resolved.

Documentation Audit Results

In 2020, the CCTS was only able to audit 24 of the 25 PSPs that generated the most complaints in 2018-2019 due to the fact that Bell Fibe and NECC, both listed as #25, cannot be audited individually:

• Bell Fibe is a service provided by Bell Canada, Bell MTS and Bell Aliant. It does not have its own documentation, and was reviewed as part of the 3 Bell brands.
• NECC’s participation in the CCTS was terminated on July 2, 2019 as it is no longer in business.

As part of the development of its compliance activities, the CCTS requested more detailed documentation than in 2019 to ensure compliance with the PA plan requirements in 2020. This resulted in a very similar number of non-compliant PSPs compared to the 2019 results. However, we noticed an improvement in the compliance status of the 24 PSPs that generated the most CCTS complaints, as non-compliant items required more minor updates than in 2019.

This section identifies the main issues that were found during the review process.

Only 1 PSP was non-compliant for all sections of the PA Plan. Maple Call did not provide any response to the CCTS requests for documentation. As such, the PSP has been deemed non-compliant with all sections of the PA Plan. As this situation did not occur in 2019, Maple Call’s results raised the average of non-compliant items per PSP in 2020^[11].

2 PSPs failed to respond to our requests. As part of the review process, the CCTS may request additional information from a PSP. When the PSP fails to respond to this request, it is deemed non-compliant for the affected section(s) of the PA Plan. In 2020, this was the case with 2 PSPs:

• Maple Call failed to respond to all requests for documentation from the CCTS, as explained above.
• Xplornet failed to respond to a request for additional information. As a result, they were deemed non-compliant for the sections related to invoices and white pages.

The most common issue affects customers who do not receive bills. With 5 non-compliant PSPs, section 2(f) is the main issue with PA Plan compliance in 2020. This sub-section lists notification requirements for customers who do not receive bills, and affects mostly pre-paid customers. Amongst the reasons for this non-compliance, the CCTS noted that PSPs did not mention that the text message informing their customers of the CCTS is free of charge, nor did they make it clear that it was coming from the service provider. Freedom Mobile also confirmed that due to an oversight, the required message was not sent to customers in 2020.

The second most common issue shows that some PSPs still need to update their internal process documents and invoices. The CCTS determined that the documents of several PSPs showed outdated information about the CCTS in 2020: 4 are noted as non-compliant due to the content of the CCTS message on their invoices, and 5 due to the CCTS information in their internal documents (including Maple Call in both categories). Specifically, some bills and internal documents listed the CCTS by its former name and indicated that broadcasting services are out of scope, despite the addition of TV services to the CCTS mandate as of September 1, 2017.

After completing the audit of each PSP’s documentation, the CCTS engaged with non-compliant PSPs on an individual basis to discuss the results. The CCTS has confirmed that 23 PSPs are now fully compliant and 1 PSP (Maple Call) is working on addressing the remaining issues.

For full results by section with year-over-year changes, see Appendix B.

PA Plan – Website Review

The CCTS reviewed websites of 63 PSPs in total to ensure that their customers have access to required information, such as how the customer can contact the CCTS. The 63 PSPs were chosen as follows:

• The 24 PSPs generating the most CCTS complaints in 2018-2019 according to our Annual Report. Of the 25 PSPs originally selected, 1 did not have its own website and therefore was not included in the assessment.
• The 9 PSPs that were flagged for potential major non-compliance in 2020. Of the 15 PSPs originally selected, 1 no longer seems to be in business, 5 were already included in the top 24 PSPs generating the most CCTS complaints in 2018-2019 and therefore were not included in the assessment.
• 30 randomly selected PSPs.

From these 63 audits, the CCTS identified the following main issues (all PSP categories combined):

• Although most PSPs had CCTS information somewhere on their websites (43 PSPs), only 36 of them had the CCTS information displayed on their complaint page.
• Of the 43 PSPs displaying CCTS information somewhere on their websites, only 33 of them had a link to the CCTS website, and 31 showed the CCTS logo. All the other PSPs, including those that did not have CCTS information available anywhere on their websites, were deemed non-compliant with these sections.
• Only 28 PSPs were found to have a clearly-labeled and easy-to-find page displaying CCTS information.
• Of the 39 PSPs that had a search function on their website, 22 were found non-compliant with the PA Plan requirements for not being able to return the required CCTS results.

In 2020, the CCTS audited websites of randomly selected PSPs for the first time. After reviewing the results, this additional type of audit is now considered an essential part of our compliance monitoring activities to ensure that all customers have access to the required CCTS information while visiting their service provider’s website.

After working on an individual basis with the affected PSPs, we were able to confirm that 45 PSPs are now compliant with the website requirements of the PA Plan. Additionally, the CCTS received responses from 8 other PSPs that confirmed they are working on their website to address the issues. The remaining 10 PSPs^[12] did not respond to the CCTS’ attempts to discuss the matter. Our Compliance team will continue to reach out and follow our internal escalation process to ensure that all non-compliant items are addressed.

For the full results per section with year-over-year changes, see Appendix C.

A. Requirements

In order to offer free services to consumers, the CCTS’ funding model distributes the financial weight of its operations on PSPs depending on their retail forborne revenues as well as the number of complaints received.

Every year, to determine the PSPs’ retail forborne revenues, PSPs are required to provide certified financial information. When PSPs fail to provide this information or fail to pay their bills to the CCTS, it adds costs, which must be borne by all the other PSPs, and needlessly consumes CCTS resources.

To focus efforts on complaint-handling activities and ensure compliance with financial obligations, the CCTS monitors whether PSPs have complied with the following requirements:

• Disclosure of financial information
• Payment of CCTS fees

B. Monitoring activities and results

Disclosure of financial information

In 2020, 112 out of 289 service providers did not comply with the requirements to provide us with financial information. Of these 112 PSPs, 15 were Revenue-Based Fees (RBF) payers with annual unregulated telecommunications revenues of over 10 million dollars. See Appendix D for the full list of non-compliant PSPs, with RBF payers identified in red.

Payment of CCTS fees

The CCTS bills PSPs on a quarterly basis, and they are required to pay their fees promptly. PSPs owing more than $1,000 for over 90 days are referred to a third-party collection agency. As of December 31, 2020, 10 service providers owe fees that qualify for collection activity, as listed in Appendix E.