Wind responsible for 72.5% of code breaches last year: CCTS

Wind Mobile had 422 confirmed breaches of the CRTC’s wireless code last year, or 72.5 per cent of the total compiled by the Commission for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) in its annual report, and the carrier said it's mostly due to issues involving its unlimited U.S. roaming feature. BCE Inc.’s Bell brand had 64 confirmed breaches, or 11 per cent, followed by its flanker brand Virgin Mobile, responsible for 51 breaches, or 8.8 per cent. Rogers Communications Inc.’s Fido service was responsible for 2.2 per cent, with 13 breaches, while its main brand was at 1.7 per cent, or 10 breaches. Telus Corp. had seven breaches, or 1.2 per cent, while Mississauga, Ont.-based 8com Inc. had 11 confirmed breaches, or 1.9 per cent, CCTS said in the report released Wednesday. There were a total of 582 confirmed breaches in 2014-2015, a significant increase from a year earlier, when CCTS reported 30. Wind did not have any confirmed breaches in last year’s report. In a press release, CCTS said that while the increase from 30 total breaches to 582 is significant, “it’s important to note that two-thirds of those breaches are related to a single plan offered by one provider, which generated many complaints.” The breaches also led to CCTS issuing a greater number of recommendations, it added, “but CCTS ultimately engaged the company in a dialogue that achieved positive adjustments to the offering.” In an emailed statement, Wind said that those numbers should be viewed in context, and that more than 80 per cent of the breeches “arose from fewer than 50 individual customers complaining about a single issue that arose in July 2014,” when Wind launched unlimited roaming in the U.S. “A number of customers were, in our view, abusing this service offering through excessive usage — in many cases going well beyond what could be considered personal use. As a result, we decided to suspend those customers,” Wind said, adding that it believed the company’s terms of service allowed it to do so. “However, some of the affected customers complained to the CCTS, and those complaints were ultimately upheld. All of these customers were fully reimbursed,” it said. It noted in a backgrounder document that the issue was around the fact that its terms of service didn’t state a usage cap. Wind said in the statement that aside “from this one incident and the resulting breaches, Wind’s record for 2015 in this regard is solid and not significantly different from that of 2014.” It said that CCTS numbers for the three-month period ended October 2015 show less than 10 confirmed breaches for the company. The annual report covered the 12-month period between the beginning of August 2014 and the end of July 2015. Of the 422 breaches that the CCTS attributed to Wind, 37.2 per cent were related to changes to contracts and related documents, 30.8 per cent were about disconnections, 19.2 per cent were about contracts and related documents, and 11.4 per cent were related to clarity. The report didn’t specify which provisions of the wireless code any single service breached, but did provide the total number of breaches among all the companies by the section of the regulation they violated. Nearly all of the complaints related to clarity were regarding unlimited services, while the majority of complaints relating to disconnections were about the notice customers received before their service was disconnected. Overall, there was a 12 per cent drop in complaints, CCTS said, following a 17 per cent fall last year. It said it accepted 9,988 complaints in 2014-2015, and that it had an 87 per cent resolution rate last year. The report said that out of the total number of complaints about telecom services the CCTS accepted, Bell’s main brand accounted for 36 per cent, its Virgin Mobile brand had 6.1 per cent and its Bell Aliant division had 1.4 per cent, while Rogers accounted for 18.2 per cent and Fido for 6.1 per cent, and Wind was responsible for seven per cent of total complaints. Telus Corp. was in sixth place with 4.7 per cent of complaints, and its Kodoo brand had 1.8 per cent. “We’re cautiously optimistic that the effectiveness of our process is helping customers and service providers resolve many complaints before they get to us,” CCTS commissioner Howard Maker wrote in the report. Maker added that it is “difficult to answer” questions about whether that decline in complaints is the result of the wireless code clarifying rights and responsibilities, and how that drop squares with the large increase in confirmed breaches. He said CCTS would “keep a close eye” on such questions. He noted that “for the first time in our history, we recorded a decline in the proportional number of issues arising from wireless complaints," dropping to about 53 per cent this year from more than 60 per cent during the previous four years. Complaints about Internet service increased 52 per cent to 5,045, and rose to 26 per cent of overall complaints from 20 per cent a year earlier. The CCTS report said most Internet complaints were related to billing. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) said in a press release that this was an "alarming increase" in Internet complaints. “Canadians rely more and more on their Internet connection, so it is disturbing that complaints against ISPs have shot up” PIAC executive director John Lawford said in the release. “The Internet-service industry should consider its practices and the CRTC should consider an Internet code like the wireless code.” There was a 1.4 per cent decline in accepted complaints for Bell, a 25.4 per cent reduction for Virgin Mobile, an 11.3 per cent drop for Bell Aliant, a 28.6 per cent decline for Telus, a 1.7 per cent rise for Koodo and a 37.6 per cent increase in accepted complaints for Wind. Rogers showed a 23.7 per cent decline, while its Fido had a 32.9 per cent fall. Rogers said in a press release that these figures combined resulted in the biggest improvement among telecom companies in Canada. Rogers’ Deepak Khandelwal, chief customer officer for Rogers, said in a phone interview the decline in complaints was due to initiatives like its Roam Like Home plan, simplifying bills, improving communications with customers and “empowering our front line to make sure they can they can address and handle any customer issues that comes up right at the front line.” He said the company “looks at what frustrates our customers from the past reports” and incorporates that input to “make things easier and simpler for them.” Telus said in a press release Wednesday that the report showed the company had “the lowest number of customer complaints of any national carrier by a substantial margin,” and pointed out that it garnered only 4.7 per cent of complaints, while Rogers and Bell combined had over 50 per cent. David Fuller, president of Telus’ consumer and small business division, said in the press release the company is “not content with simply outperforming our competition; our ultimate goal is to bring our complaints down to zero. These results show us that we have 466 opportunities to prove to our customers that they can expect more from us, and we'll be looking at this report, along with the feedback we receive from our customers every day, for opportunities to continuously get better." The top issue raised in the complaints, accounting for 12.8 per cent, was non-disclosure of terms or misleading information about terms, followed by incorrect charges at 12 per cent. The legitimacy and amount of early cancellation fees made up 6.6 per cent of the total issues in the complaints, the same percentage as intermittent and inadequate quality of service. Five per cent of the issues in the complaints were regarding the 30-day cancellation policy. “Once again, billing problems accounted for by far the largest number of issues raised in complaints,” followed by contract disputes and service delivery, the report noted. The CCTS had indicated confirmed breaches of the wireless code were rising in its mid-year report in April. At the time, Maker said in a press release that the increase in code breaches reflected an increase in customers entering contracts which fall under the code’s purview, providers adjusting to the new rules and the CCTS getting better at detecting wireless code issues. The CRTC is currently deciding whether to expand the CCTS’ mandate to include TV service, as well as whether it should change the organization’s mandate. It wrapped up a four-day hearing into the issue in early November. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

Wind responsible for 72.5% of code breaches last year: CCTS

News | December 1, 2015

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Wind responsible for 72.5% of code breaches last year: CCTS

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