| reply to Stats
Re: CCTS Annual Report BTW, the CCTS states the number of complaints dictates how much a company must pay the CCTS.
Does anyone know how they work that out? Or how much a company pays per complaint? |
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carcajou
join:2012-10-16
Riviere-Beaudette, QC Reviews:
 ·Acanac
2 edits | Many people think the CCTS is an arm of the CRTC, but it is just a complaints resolution scheme created by the telecom companies themselves. They all pay a contribution to make it function and I think it s normal that a company that has many complaints would have to contribute more to its budget. After all, that company causes a certain expense to treat each complaint.
Employers who have many accidents at work also pay more to the Workers Compensation Board. It s the same principle.
I also found out by experience that the CCTS will accept your complaint only if they are the only organism that is mandated by you to get a financial settlement for you. If you tell them you are also using other means, they decline your case because they are an arbitration scheme. You cannot at the same time use litigation like Small Claims Court.
I have no reason to think they are not impartial at the CCTS, but that they forbid simultaneous litigation to take your case shows they also protect companies. |
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 GuspazGuspazPremium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
kudos:20 | reply to Stats
You're lying. The CCTS was not created by the telecom companies. They pay a contribution to run it because they're required by the CRTC to do so.
As for only accepting complaints for companies who you're actually a customer of, that makes perfect sense, and could not be any other way. All ISPs with revenue over $10 million are required to participate.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org |
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 hm
@videotron.ca | reply to carcajou
said by carcajou:Employers who have many accidents at work also pay more to the Workers Compensation Board. It s the same principle.
I also found out by experience that the CCTS will accept your complaint only if they are the only organism that is mandated by you to get a financial settlement for you. If you tell them you are also using other means, they decline your case because they are an arbitration scheme. You cannot at the same time use litigation like Small Claims Court.
Which makes sense. |
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carcajou
join:2012-10-16
Riviere-Beaudette, QC Reviews:
·Acanac
1 edit | reply to Guspaz
Ok I ll make myself clearer using the CCTS own documentation.
1) I said that the CCTS is not part of the CRTC and are not a government agency as appears here in their FAQ.
( Beginning of quote from the CCTS FAQ )
5. Are you a government department?
No, we are a private, not-for-profit corporation incorporated under federal legislation. We receive no taxpayer money – and we do not seek any.
6. So how are your operations funded?
The CRTC, Canada’s telecom regulator, ordered all providers to participate in CCTS and to provide its funding. Industry funding is typical for “ombudsman” type organizations like ours, both in Canada and around the world.( End of quote )
So, yes the telecoms were " ordered " to create it, but they still CREATED it and entirely FUND IT whether you like it or not ( and whether THEY liked it or not ). I fully admit the word " created " was a bad choice of words. Replace it with " were forced to create ". But it is a PRIVATE organization owned by the telecoms.
Now, I never said they were not impartial because of that.
You also misread me regarding the reason they declined to take my complaint. I was a client of a member. But I preferred to keep my litigation options open rather than go for arbitration.
The moment you say you gave a mandate to another organism to collect your money, they decline taking your complaint. |
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carcajou
join:2012-10-16
Riviere-Beaudette, QC Reviews:
·Acanac
| reply to hm
said by hm :said by carcajou:I also found out by experience that the CCTS will accept your complaint only if they are the only organism that is mandated by you to get a financial settlement for you. If you tell them you are also using other means, they decline your case because they are an arbitration scheme. You cannot at the same time use litigation like Small Claims Court.
Which makes sense. Yes it makes sense in a way. But it means in practice that they will simply examine if the ISP fulfilled his obligations as per the contract/TOS between you and the ISP and the CCTS will decide if you should get refunded.
But they dont pass judgment on the ISP s general business practices for example.
Or if you are entitled to a charge back from your credit card issuer, they are suddenly not interested in the case also even if those business practices are scandalous. You ll get an automatic refund from your bank...then it s not their problem. |
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hm
@videotron.ca | reply to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:All ISPs with revenue over $10 million are required to participate.
That changed.
All telecom providers must join within 3 (or is it 5) days upon notice that the CCTS received a complaint against them. Think that changed a little over a year ago.
Here, I looked into it and found it:
Providers not currently participating in CCTS have to
join within five days of being advised by CCTS that we have
received a complaint from one of their customers. |
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hm
@videotron.ca | reply to carcajou
said by carcajou:1. But it is a PRIVATE organization owned by the telecoms.
2. I was a client of a member. But I preferred to keep my litigation options open rather than go for arbitration.
1. Seems the consumers groups have an issue with the CCTS as well. See:
»www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-341.htm
and
»www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2011/···4330.htm
Seems the CCTS defines anything as being a consumer group. Even a group with vested interests in telecom.
So yeah, the CCTS is like an industry astroturf group (just like the CWTA) and nothing more. Who gets to nominate/vote in consumer representatives from real consumer groups to the board of directors is loaded and total bullsh*t.
2. You don't lose your right to go to court. Matter of fact you can tell the CCTS to stuff it is you don't like what they come back with. Nothing is binding on you.
But it makes sense that you shouldn't have a file open in court, the CCTS and whatever else at the same time. It's not like you can pick and chose the best decision.
Why would you need to file in court and then go to the CCTS?
The CCTS is ok for people to scared of court, or too intimidated by the whole process and learning how to file in small claims. Does the CRTC serve justice? No. Not at all, as you pointed out. That is what the courts are for.
BTW, why would you file in court and then go to the CCTS? Why would you even bother with them?
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Anyhow, my question still remains open for any of the so-called indi's here to answer (or anyone else who knows for sure):
The CCTS states the number of complaints dictates how much a company must pay the CCTS.
Does anyone know how they work that out? Or how much a company pays per complaint? |
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resa1983Premium
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON
kudos:7 Reviews:
 ·TekSavvy Cable
| I would assume how much the company pays is dependent on how far the complaint got in the process.. Ie A full on decision (end of the line) would cost a company more, than if they were to settle the complaint at say just the investigation phase. More time & effort put into it by CCTS, more money to compensate CCTS for that time. Would also be a good way to get companies to negotiate sooner in the process.
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Battle.net Tech Support MVP |
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carcajou
join:2012-10-16
Riviere-Beaudette, QC Reviews:
·Acanac
4 edits | reply to hm
said by hm :said by carcajou:1. But it is a PRIVATE organization owned by the telecoms.
2. I was a client of a member. But I preferred to keep my litigation options open rather than go for arbitration.
BTW, why would you file in court and then go to the CCTS? Why would you even bother with them? I fully agree that my own complaint about MONEY could only be brought either in front of the CCTS OR the Court.
But really, I saw TWO separate things here. I had a claim but it s a minor thing in the big picture. I wanted an organism to look at the general business practices of my ISP and judge if they are justified and/or legitimate in this country in 2012.
I had asked a charge back to my credit card issuer and I knew very well that my bank had no choice: either they would collect from Acanac or the bank would compensate me themselves. So should that be enough to tranquilize me ? You might just as well ask me why I m here ranting when I actually got my refund already.
The CCTS was not interested in hearing my point of view from the Consumers rights perspective, When I told them my bank would compensate me anyway, it was the end of it for them.
So I moved on to the OPC ( Office de Protection du Consommateur ) and I intend to keep that complaint going even if I was paid. In Quebec, we have the most advanced set of Laws for Consumers rights in Canada ( you ll often see in the telecoms contracts that there are clauses just for Quebec residents ). So I now want to know if that agency ( the OPC ) will look at Acanac s business practices and if they will actually do something about it even if my own money is back in my pocket.
Acanac already received a formal " Avis " from that provincial govt agency in november 2011. Let s see if they get a second one. Their file there is getting thicker every month. But such formal notice is probably the most they ll do with a company operating from another jurisdiction. They have the power to prosecute, but that power probably stops at the demarcation line with Ontario. |
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 kimPremium,Mod
join:2001-03-25
ON
kudos:6 | reply to Stats
Re: CCTS Annual Report Going forward let's try to stay with the original topic of the CCTS Annual Report.
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Fluent in 3 languages: English, Sarcasm and Sexual Innuendo.
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| The ISP Summit is going on. Some tidbits:
In regards to filed complaints with the CCTS:
"43% of complaints get no response by service provider"
So almost half of the complaints we see in the reports above are due to the ISP just ignoring people who have been ripped off.
Interesting, but no one should be surprised. |
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 diskaceElectronic Box CEOPremium,VIP
join:2002-02-21 | reply to resa1983
said by resa1983:I would assume how much the company pays is dependent on how far the complaint got in the process.. Ie A full on decision (end of the line) would cost a company more, than if they were to settle the complaint at say just the investigation phase. More time & effort put into it by CCTS, more money to compensate CCTS for that time. Would also be a good way to get companies to negotiate sooner in the process.
Exactly.
However, if it turns out the service provider is right, the investigation fee should be paid by the opening party. That would be fair and some consumers that are wrong would think about it twice before jumping the gun.
It is not fair we have to pay the bill for complaints about stuff customers is wrong about.
FYI the annual fee is 500-25 000$ + 70-350$ per complaints.
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Electronic Box Inc. - Jean-Philippe Béïque
Ebox forum »ELECTRONICBOX |
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hm
@videotron.ca | said by diskace:[
FYI the annual fee is 500-25 000$ + 70-350$ per complaints.
Thanks for putting some numbers to it diskace.
Are you able to add more detail to this?
For example:
How much does it cost for each stage the complaint gets to?
If your annul cost is based on the total customers you have? Or based on the previous years total filed complaints? |
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 GonePremium
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON
kudos:3
·Start Communicat..
| reply to diskace
said by diskace:However, if it turns out the service provider is right, the investigation fee should be paid by the opening party. That would be fair and some consumers that are wrong would think about it twice before jumping the gun. Absolutely not. The last thing we want to do is to create an environment that causes people to be afraid of lodging a complaint for fear of having to pay costs, even if they are 100% right from the get-go. One only needs to look at the Bell repair fees that get passed on to customers and the fact that people are outright afraid to call wholesale ISPs for repair issues due to the mere possibility of that $95 fee being charged. That is not the kind of environment the federal government and the CRTC intended when they created the CCTS.
Just like credit card merchant, the fees paid to the CCTS are a cost of doing business. The customer should under no circumstances be on the hook to pay those fees directly. |
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diskaceElectronic Box CEOPremium,VIP
join:2002-02-21 | said by Gone:Just like credit card merchant, the fees paid to the CCTS are a cost of doing business. The customer should under no circumstances be on the hook to pay those fees directly.
Well i somewhat agree and somewhat disagree. While i agree a customer should not fear to lodge a valid complaint you can clearly see where abuse of this complaint forum will take. Raise of cost for the greater majority.
In court, the party that lose generally have to pay some of the fees involved. That makes sense to me. So you don't go to court unless you evaluate your case with a certain level of seriousness.
The CCTS received 12k complaints up from 2k 2 years ago. The complaint growth is exponential and it's only the beginning. I fear that as soon as a consumer is not happy he will threaten to lodge a complaint.
It's the same problem that merchant face with charge back. The merchant is screwed.
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Electronic Box Inc. - Jean-Philippe Béïque
Ebox forum »ELECTRONICBOX |
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GonePremium
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON
kudos:3 Reviews:
·Start Communicat..
| But the CCTS isn't a court. It's more akin to an ombudsman for the industry. Under no circumstances should anyone be held responsible for costs associated with taking an issue to an ombudsman.
I would take this further to say that if there are an inordinately high number of complaints it is up to the CCTS to create a better intake and investigation process that is more cost effective to the membership.
And let's be frank - if the industry policed themselves in a more effective way instead of being so well-known for customer dissatisfaction that the government was forced to step in to temper the situation, no one would have found themselves in this sort of situation to begin with. While you may run a tight ship, you'll forgive me for saying that I have no sympathy for any company that pays for membership in the CCTS. |
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