Rogers will soon charge a 1.6% credit card processing fee on bills

Rogers is taking a page from Telus’ playbook and will soon hit customers with a credit card processing fee if they use one to pay their phone or internet bill.

Per a notice on its support site and a warning spotted by some customers already, Rogers will start charging a 1.6 per cent credit card processing fee on January 17, 2027. This will only apply to those who pay their bills via a credit card, with other payment options being exempt. These include:

• Direct debit from your bank account
• Online banking payments
• Cheques
• Rogers gift cards
• Prepaid cards
• Debit Mastercard
• Visa Debit

In the notice, Rogers says the charge “reflects the fees we are charged by credit card companies.”

However, there are some exemptions. For one, customers in Quebec won’t be subject to the credit card processing charge, nor will customers on “select specialized plans.” These include Connected for Success customers and former Shaw Mobile customers on migrated plans.

Quebec residents are exempt because the province’s Consumer Protection Act prohibits charging those kinds of fees.

The CRTC can’t save you

Notably, this comes after Telus pulled a similar stunt in 2022. The carrier filed a request with the CRTC in August of 2022 seeking permission to add a credit card processing fee of 1.5 per cent. But while the CRTC expressed concern over the practice, it also admitted that carriers didn’t need permission to charge such a fee.

The commission did say it would “explore all available regulatory options” if the process continued, but frankly that hasn’t amounted to much more than former CRTC chair Ian Scott saying the telecom industry should “treat Canadians with respect and do better.”

Ultimately, Telus reversed the decision roughly a year later, telling CBC News it heard customer concerns about the fee.

Back when Telus added its credit card fee, Rogers told MobileSyrup that it had “no plans to move ahead with a fee like this at this time.” Frankly, I’m shocked Rogers waited as long as it did to add the fee. So far, Bell has not added a credit card fee.

But perhaps the most frustrating part of this is that carriers have spent the last several years pushing customers into using credit cards for automatic payments. Carriers incentivized auto pay by bundling discounts with it.

Telus, meanwhile, requires customers to sign up for pre-authorized bank payments to get an auto pay discount, but that brings a host of other issues with it. For example, if a carrier overcharges customers and takes the money right from their bank account — which happens more than you think! — it can be extremely difficult to get the money back. The horrible state of telecom customer service makes this problem even worse. One of the few resources available to Canadians, the CCTS, is facing a rising tide of complaints, causing slower resolution times.

And don’t even get me started on the rampant fraud plaguing the telecom industry right now.

All this is to say, Canadians are being squeezed from all sides by telecom companies. And as much as a credit card fee sucks, I would be very hesitant to give any of these companies pre-authorized bank access. But, hopefully Rogers takes another page from Telus’ playbook and reverses course on the credit card processing fee.