The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has rejected a proposal from Telus Communications Inc. to charge customers who pay by credit card a 1.5% transaction fee..The order follows a 2015 Act of Parliament that banned telecom companies from charging a paper billing fee, according to Blacklock's Reporter..“It is unreasonable for Telus to dismiss the broad affordability impacts of an additional fee applied to customers’ bills,” the CRTC wrote in its Order 2022-335. .The Commission received 3,918 submissions on the Telus proposal with the majority opposed..“The practice of charging a credit card processing fee is unacceptable,” wrote the Commission..The Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a consumers’ group, in a September 7 petition said charging customers for paying their bills was unfair and unpopular. “The Commission has already received an unprecedented number of public comments on the application,” wrote the Centre..“This public outcry should be considered by the Commission as weighing heavily against approval of Telus’ application,” wrote the Centre. Consumers “intuitively understand the enormity of this potential shift and are concerned with the potential costs,” it said..Billing fees are a long-running dispute in the telecom industry. Parliament in 2015 amended the Telecommunications Act to state companies “shall not charge a subscriber for providing the subscriber with a paper bill.” Fees at the time ranged from 99¢ a month at Primus to $2 at Bell Canada, $3 at Videotron, $4 at Wind and $5.95 a month charged by OnConnect..Telecom companies responded by replacing paper billing with electronic invoices, a practice upheld by the CRTC. A Telus subsidiary, Koodoo Mobile, was the first to suspend all paper billing..Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne last March 3 dismissed consumers’ petitions to maintain paper billing at no charge. “Referring back the Koodoo decision would only delay the CRTC’s current work to develop rules for all communications services,” Champagne said at the time..“This is an important matter,” Trish McAuliffe, president of the National Pensioners Federation, said in an earlier interview. “Who knows what’s next? It’s a complete slap in the face from a very powerful lobby and it’s underhanded.”.Liberal MP David McGuinty (Ottawa South, ON.) in 2008 introduced Bill C-555 An Act To Provide Clarity And Fairness In The Provision Of Telecommunications Services that proposed to outlaw “any additional fee or charge that is not part of a subscriber’s monthly fee or monthly plan rate” for telecom subscriptions. The bill was never debated and lapsed in the 39th Parliament.
