Complaints against Canadian telecom, TV providers soar by 57 per cent

The number of complaints against telecom companies dramatically soared over the 2017-18 period, according to a recent report.

The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS) released its annual tally Tuesday for the 12 months from Aug. 1, 2017 to July 31, 2018.

The 14,272 complaints raised by customers was up 57 per cent from the previous year, while the total number of issues they raised rose 67 per cent to 30,734.

The report says wireless services continue to have the biggest number of issues by far, up 49 per cent from last year. Billing issues and contract disputes top the list of complaints, regardless of the type of service.

Bell Canada continued to receive the biggest number of complaints with 4,734 and Rogers received the second-largest with 1,449. Telus followed in third place with 944 and Freedom Mobile placed followed in fourth, receiving 850 complaints.

The CCTS is a dispute resolution body which works under a mandate from Canada’s federal regulators and is an independent industry-funded body.

They said 71.6 per cent of the complaints it received were resolved without having to move to a higher level of intervention that included an investigation.

Nearly 2,000 complaints were resolved after an investigation and 1,068 were closed with or without an investigation for a variety of reasons.

If you are currently experiencing an issue with your provider visit: ccts-cprst.ca