Consumer, seniors groups ask for telecom sales code of conduct

GATINEAU — Consumer protection and seniors advocacy groups told the CRTC Tuesday Canada needs new rules for the telecom industry to deal with aggressive and misleading sales practices, and that seniors are frequently targeted by pushy salespeople. One consumer-protection group after another lined up before the commission Tuesday to call for a new government-backed code of conduct for the industry, and raked telecom companies over the coals over stories of unsavoury sales practices. John Lawford, counsel to the Fair Communications Sales Coalition (FCSC) — a group made up of ACORN Canada, the National Pensioners Federation, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) and Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) — started his presentation by shaming the industry. "The companies are in denial," he said. "They have major sales problems." "Not one company in this proceeding has apologized to Canadians for how they sell," he added, nor does any recognize that "public trust has been lost." He made the comments on the second day of the CRTC's hearing into aggressive and misleading sales practices, ordered by the Liberal government earlier this year with a final commission report expected by February. Canada's telecom companies have maintained their sales practices are fair and that any issues likely stem from miscommunications resulting from a complex industry. They will appear before the telecom and broadcast regulator later in the week to defend against the criticisms. Lawford, the executive director of PIAC, spearheaded FCSC's testimony and told the CRTC it should seriously consider a comprehensive sales practices code to control problematic sales behaviour. He said Canada should have an eventual goal of following Australia's lead on a mandatory, national telecom sales conduct code, but it might be quicker to simply expand the mandate of the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) beyond contracts. He suggested additional rules might be needed for worst-case sales problems. That might include policies such as a "potential door-to-door sales ban" or restrictions on offering "free" hardware, like sales calls offering free tablets that come with strings attached — the kind of thing that would “dupe” seniors, new Canadians, or people less able to check into things. Lawford also suggested the commission should consider a financial suitability standard, similar to a Canadian securities law requirement that salespeople assess whether what they're selling or advising is suitable given their clients’ profile. A suitability standard was an idea that CRTC commissioners asked a number of witnesses about Tuesday. Lawford told The Wire Report after his testimony the commission needs to issue a report to government at the end of the hearings that confirms there is a widespread sales practices problem in telecom, otherwise unsavoury practices will continue. "If they do a report that says 'we're not sure if there's a problem', we'll have the same thing that happened in banking – which is the companies will take that as a signal they can double-down and be twice as bad," he said. "There's plenty of evidence on the record that there's extreme problems in all these sales channels." The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada issued a report earlier this year into Canada's big banks which said although the industry's culture is sharply focused on sales that "can increase the risk of mis-selling and breaching market conduct obligations," it did not find "widespread" instances "mis-selling" products. Concordia communications professor Kim Sawchuk, representing research group Ageing + Communication + Technologies (ACT), said she's "alarmed" after doing a series of interviews with 53 seniors where the majority described "predatory" sales practices, and some with "reported being lied to." She told several stories of individual seniors being tricked, pressured or put through an arduous process to navigate the billing system. One such story was of a woman, 82, who was approached at a BCE Inc. Bell sales booth in Montreal and was asked to sign a document confirming a conversation. But she said the senior was actually signing into a contract — continuing the litany of sales and billing horror stories told during Monday's hearings and contained within submissions. Her group had also, meanwhile, criticized the accessibility and promotion of the CRTC hearings for older Canadians, and produced and distributed a video of two "tech savvy" seniors who found the submission process arduous and complex. Sneek peak from @kimsawchuk and @colafontaine's presentation on the "illusion of #inclusion" and the #senior suppression that comes with online consultations. Find us at 4pm in #CAG2018 in Parksville room.https://t.co/bDDKe4TqkG — ACT Project (@ACT_Concordia) October 19, 2018 The Consumers Council of Canada spent much of its time defending the Ipsos polling conducted for the CRTC that raised concerns about sales practices, after Telus Corp.'s reply had criticized the group's research methodology, including research submitted by ACORN, ACT, the Consumers Council and OpenMedia. Other witnesses Tuesday included the Manitoba branch of the Consumer's Association of Canada, Democracy Watch, and a research group from University of Ottawa that conducted a study using mystery shoppers in the Ottawa-Gatineau area. The latter group's research found that in mystery shopper tests done in 2016 and 2018, retailers were widely "withholding or obfuscating information that would nevertheless be relevant and referenced in the fine print of a signed contract," according to testimony from information studies professor Mary Cavanagh. On Wednesday, smaller telecommunications companies such as Xplornet Communications Inc. and TekSavvy Solutions Inc. will appear for the hearings, followed by larger companies later this week. — With reporting by Kyle Duggan at kduggan@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Consumer, seniors groups ask for telecom sales code of conduct

News | October 23, 2018

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Consumer, seniors groups ask for telecom sales code of conduct

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