Mid-Year Report
August 1, 2022 – January 31, 2023
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
About the Numbers
- Complaints are up 12%
- Almost 9 out of 10 complaints resolved (often within 30 days)
- Over half of all issues raised by consumers were about wireless (mobile) services. Internet issues were the second biggest irritant for consumers, representing a little over one out of four issues raised.
- Rogers accounts for 17.4% of all complaints accepted by the CCTS, becoming the most complained-about PSP for the first time. Rogers is followed by Bell at 14.9%, TELUS at 13.0%, Fido at 11.9% and Koodo at 9.0%.
All comparisons are to Mid-Year Report 2021-22 unless otherwise specified.
About Our Activities
- Welcomed 14 new Participating Service Providers between August 1, 2022 and January 31, 2023.
- Issued a Decision to ICA Canada On-Line Inc. (“ICA”), which refused to cooperate with our investigation of a customer complaint and rejected our Recommendation to remedy the customer’s complaint. Our Decision requires ICA to refund a small business customer and cancel improper complaint fees, which our Procedural Code requires ICA to implement.
- Preparing for upcoming changes to the CCTS’ complaint-handling process that will enhance our service delivery to customers and service providers, which will be implemented mid-2023 along with the CCTS’ technology transformation. These initiatives will streamline the complaints process, allow us to resolve complaints more quickly and increase transparency. We will continue to engage with stakeholders through the implementation of the upcoming changes.
- Launched a celebration of our 15th year anniversary, marking the occasion with a digital campaign to continue building public awareness of our services. Over the past 15 years, we have helped consumers and service providers resolve over 150,000 consumer complaints.
- Completed audits of Participating Service Providers’ compliance with the CCTS’ public awareness requirements and now working with providers to address non-compliance issues.
7,451
Complaints accepted
6,761
Complaints concluded
88%
Complaints resolved
36
Confirmed Wireless Code breaches
14
Confirmed Television Service Provider Code breaches
4
Confirmed Internet Code breaches
0
Confirmed Deposit and Disconnection Code breaches
Operational Statistics
Complaints by Service Provider
All statistics are as at February 1, 2023 and are subject to audit. See Appendix A for complaints accepted for all service providers.
Complaints about Rogers increased by 29% during the reporting period, and it is now the most complained-about PSP. This was largely driven by a significant increase in complete loss of service issues, which more than doubled.
In total, the CCTS accepted 187 complaints from Rogers’ customers about the July 8, 2022 national service outage. These complaints were submitted by customers who were not satisfied by the proactive credits that Rogers announced to its customers on July 12, 2022 and who were not able to resolve their complaint directly with Rogers first. On July 8, 2022, the CCTS received nearly double the number of calls and chats from customers. Some calls were not able to connect to us, as our circuits were overwhelmed by the call volume. During the outage, the CCTS informed customers about their right to recourse and our ability to assist with related complaints.
Issues Raised in Complaints
The complaints concluded between August 1, 2022 and January 31, 2023 raised 13,962 issues. A complaint can raise more than one issue.
Customers may raise issues that fall outside of the CCTS’ mandate. This table identifies the top 5 issues. If a complaint raises issues that fall outside of the CCTS’ mandate, the CCTS will direct the customer to another agency if one can better assist.
Code of Conduct Reporting
In this section, we present statistical reports on breaches of the four CRTC consumer codes of conduct.
When we accept a customer complaint, we record and track all of the issues raised in the complaint. Some complaints raise questions about whether a provider has complied with a code of conduct. We call these “alleged breaches.”
The vast majority of complaints are resolved to the satisfaction of the customer and the provider at an early stage of our process. When complaints are resolved, we do not have the information necessary to investigate the underlying issues, including to determine if there have been any violations of a code of conduct. Therefore, these issues remain characterized as “alleged breaches” and are categorized as “not requiring investigation” in the following charts.
In the cases that we do investigate, we can determine whether there has been a violation. We categorize proven violations as “confirmed breaches.” When we investigate and determine that there has not been a violation, we categorize this as “no breach.”
The CCTS publishes an Annotated Guide to the Wireless Code and an Annotated Guide to the Deposit & Disconnection Code.
Terminology
Alleged breach: When a customer claims that the service provider failed to perform an obligation under any of the CRTC’s codes of conduct, or when a CCTS staff member identifies a potential code breach based on the details of a complaint. Each breach references an individual section of the Code. Thus, more than one alleged breach may be recorded in a complaint.
Confirmed breach: When the CCTS can confirm, based on its investigation, that a provision of any CRTC code of conduct has been breached.
No breach: When we have investigated an alleged breach and concluded that the service provider did not breach any CRTC code of conduct.
This report includes only those Code-related issues that arose in complaints which have been concluded and for which breaches have been confirmed in the reporting period.
The Wireless Code
| Section of Code | Total breaches |
|---|---|
| I.2. Service provider did not give reasonable notice to the customer at least 14 calendar days or/and 24 hours before disconnection and the notice did not contain all relevant information | 14 |
| B.1. Paper or electronic copy of the contract was not provided to the customer; contract did not include all the information listed in the Wireless Code. | 8 |
| C.1. Critical Information Summary | 6 |
| F.1. Service provider did not unlock the customer’s device, or did not give the customer the means to unlock the device / locked device sold. | 3 |
| G.4. Trial period | 2 |
| A.1. Plain language | 1 |
| E.2. Service provider did not suspend roaming data overage charges once they reached $100. | 1 |
| A.3. Unlimited services | 1 |
| Total | 36 |
See Appendix B for a breakdown of the confirmed Wireless Code breaches by section.
1See the CRTC’s Wireless Code for full text of appropriate sections.
Internet Code
| Section of Code | Total breaches |
|---|---|
| D.2. Changes to key contract terms after the commitment period | 2 |
| A.5. Clarity of offers | 1 |
| I.1. When disconnection may occur | 1 |
| Total | 4 |
2See the CRTC’s Internet Code for full text of appropriate sections. The Internet Code applies only to large facilities-based Internet Service Providers and their brands and affiliates.
Television Service Provider Code
| Section of Code | Total breaches |
|---|---|
| X. Changing programming options | 12 |
| XI. Notice for changes to programming options | 1 |
| II. Clarity of offers | 1 |
| Total | 14 |
3See the CRTC’s See the CRTC’s Television Service Provider Code for full text of appropriate sections.
Deposit and Disconnection Code
Compliance with Service Provider Public Awareness Requirements
Each year, the CCTS audits Participating Service Providers (“PSPs”) to ensure they carry out the requirements of the CCTS Public Awareness Plan. Among other requirements, each PSP must have information on its website about the CCTS so that customers are aware of, or can easily find out about, the CCTS when they need help to solve disputes with their communications service providers.
In 2022, the CCTS audited 60 PSPs for compliance with the Public Awareness Plan. This includes the 25 PSPs that generated the most CCTS complaints in the previous year, 3 PSPs identified for specific procedural non-compliance issues in 2022, and 32 randomly selected PSPs.
After auditing the websites of the 60 PSPs, we found:
- 11 PSPs were fully compliant with the public awareness website requirements;
- 15 PSPs were fully non-compliant with the public awareness website requirements, meaning they did not have any information about the CCTS on their website; and
- 34 PSPs had some compliance issues because the presentation of CCTS information on their website was not fully compliant with the public awareness website requirements.
Results of the CCTS’ 2022 audit were shared with PSPs in late 2022 and early 2023. We are working directly with the providers with non-compliance issues to bring them into compliance. We noticed some providers continue to be non-compliant with issues brought to their attention last year. Our efforts this year focus on engaging with these service providers to fix non-compliance issues so consumers can become aware of the CCTS and their right to redress. We will publish the full results and analysis of our audits later this year in the 2022 Compliance Monitoring Report.
Appendix A – Complaints by Service Provider
August 1, 2022 – January 31, 2023
This list includes service providers that received at least one complaint during the reporting period. Overall, 434 service providers and brands participated in the CCTS during this reporting period (including 14 service providers that joined during this period). No complaints were received about 346 Participating Service Providers.
Appendix B – Confirmed Wireless Code Breaches by Section
August 1, 2022 – January 31, 2023