Last week, Rogers and Fido raised its connection fees from $60 to $70. In response, Scott Hutton, chief of consumer and research of the CRTC has addressed a letter to Ruth Altman, director of regulatory consumer policy at Rogers.
In the e-mail to Altman, Hutton is requesting for information on how the change isn’t a violation of Bill C-69. In the bill it states:
27.04 (1) A telecommunications service provider must not charge a fee to a subscriber that is related to the activation or modification of a telecommunications service plan, or any other fee whose main purpose is, in the opinion of the Commission, to discourage subscribers from modifying their service plan or cancelling their contract for telecommunications services.
(2) The Commission must specify the types of fees for the purposes of subsection (1).
In the e-mail, Hutton asks how the service set-up fee change is consistent with the recent amendments to the Act no later than July 26th. It’s worth noting that Rogers technically only needs to explain to the Commission that its increase in fees were not to discourage subscribers from modifying their plans or cancelling their contract.
Rogers restructured its fees all the way back in 2013 to eliminate its $35 hardware upgrade administration and $35 activation fee and replaced them both with a $15 Connection fee. After almost annual increases we’re back to a $70 fee.
On Rogers’ website, it says, “A Setup Service Fee of $70 applies to setup your device and related services. The Setup Service Fee is waived through self-serve on rogers.com (but not through Live Chat and Customer Service). If you require device setup in-store thereafter, a $70 Setup Service Fee will apply.”
It’s unclear why Rogers made this change and whether the company is pushing customers to shop online. It’s also unclear if this is in violation, but we’ll likely soon learn more about Rogers’ reasoning.
Here’s the full e-mail below:
BY E-MAIL
Ruth Altman
Director, Regulatory Consumer Policy
Rogers
Subject: Request for information on current practices related to changes to the Telecommunications Act stemming from Budget 2024 – Prohibition of fees for the activation or modification of a service plan
Bill C-69, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 16, 2024Footnote1 , received Royal Assent on 20 June 2024. Division 37 of the Bill relates to changes to the Telecommunications Act seeking to impose further consumer protection measures on telecommunication service providers (TSPs).
Through this Bill, the Telecommunications Act (the Act) has been amended to add the following:
27.04 (1) A telecommunications service provider must not charge a fee to a subscriber that is related to the activation or modification of a telecommunications service plan, or any other fee whose main purpose is, in the opinion of the Commission, to discourage subscribers from modifying their service plan or cancelling their contract for telecommunications services.
(2) The Commission must specify the types of fees for the purposes of subsection (1).
It appears that you recently increased your service set-up fee from $60 to $70 for customers who elect to not use self-serve mechanisms on Rogers.com or Fido.ca.
Please explain how this change would be consistent with the recent amendments to the Act by filing your response using GCKey by no later than 26 July 2024. Please ensure to address this for every brand you operate.
As set out in Procedures for filing confidential information and requesting its disclosure in Commission proceedings, Broadcasting and Telecom Information Bulletin 2010-961, 23 December 2010, as amended, TSPs may designate certain information as confidential.
You must provide an abridged version of the document involved, accompanied by detailed rationale to explain why the disclosure of the information is not in the public interest.
All submissions are to be made in accordance with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Rules of Practice and Procedure, SOR/2010-277.
Responses to this request for information will be added to the record of any relevant proceeding the CRTC may launch.
Yours sincerely,
Original signed by
Scott Hutton
Chief, Consumer and Research
Update 31/07/2024 at 11:22am ET: Removed Ruth Altman’s email address from the copied text of the email.
Source: CRTC
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