Complaints rise as Rogers surpasses Bell in complaints for the first time in 15 Years

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) released its 2022-23 Annual Report today, which details consumer complaint data, trends and emerging issues in Canada’s telecom and TV landscape. Between August 1, 2022, and July 31, 2023, the CCTS accepted over 14,000 complaints, representing a 14% increase over the previous year. These complaints included increases in issues about quality of service, roaming charges, and contract disclosure issues.  

The Annual Report demonstrates the critical role the CCTS plays in helping customers and service providers resolve problems. “The CCTS provides telecom customers with the right to have their complaints investigated independently and has the authority to require service providers to fix problems when the provider has not met its obligations. We are pleased that the Government of Canada recently reaffirmed the importance of this work, and its desire to strengthen our ability to fulfill this important role”, says Howard Maker, Commissioner and CEO of the CCTS.

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.

About the CCTS
The CCTS is Canada’s national and independent organization dedicated to resolving customer complaints about telecommunications and television services, fairly and free of charge. Telecommunication and television service providers that offer services within the mandate of the CCTS must participate. The CCTS has industry-wide participation, with over 440 service provider participants. 

The CCTS has handled over 175,000 complaints – most resolved within 30 days. Remarkably, 9 out of 10 customers find a satisfactory resolution through our service. 

Customers are encouraged to reach out to us for help if they are unable to resolve a dispute with their service provider. Let’s talk solutions!  

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Contact
Mathieu Pierre Dagonas,
Director, Communications and Stakeholder Affairs
416-458-3396
communications@ccts-cprst.ca