Telus ordered to refund “network access fee”
The CRTC today decided that Telus has been improperly charging customers a network-access fee.
The Commission has ordered Telus to rebate customers who paid this monthly fee, but did not make any telephone calls on the company’s long-distance network during the month. (The company doesn’t have to refund the fee to customers who did make long-distance telephone calls during the same month.)
“When applied to customers who did not make any long-distance calls, the monthly fee was equivalent to an unauthorized increase to the residential local service rate,” said Konrad von Finckenstein, Chairman of the CRTC.
In November 2007, Telus began charging close to half a million customers in Alberta and British Columbia a monthly network-access fee of $2.95. These customers had not signed up for a long-distance plan, either with Telus or another company, and the charge applied even if they did not make long-distance calls or if they made long-distance calls using only dial-around long-distance services.
Customers could have avoided paying the network-access fee by subscribing to TELUS’ toll-restriction service, also known as Call Guardian in certain areas, which permits only local or toll-free calls. While there is no initial charge associated with this service for residential customers, there is a $10.00 cancellation fee. The Commission has directed TELUS to waive this cancellation fee during the next three months if a residential customer subscribed to the toll-restriction service after October 2007 and now wishes to cancel it.
The CRTC no longer regulates long-distance rates. While local telephone companies can set their long-distance plans and rates according to market conditions, TELUS is required to provide its customers with access to the long-distance network as part of its local service rates.
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2 Responses to “Telus ordered to refund “network access fee””
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Tod Elsewhere
Dear Home Telephone Service Providers:
Please stop charging a long distance network access fee. Instead, make it an invisible part of your regular monthly service fee. Your accountants can still figure out how to divvy up your fees for network maintenance and profit, including long distance access. And you’ll find you’ll get less sticky billing complaints that way.
Dear Cellular Telephone Service Providers:
Please read the above note I made to home telephone providers. Apply such logic to your System Access Fee. (There’s a whole other can of worms here…)
Sincerely,
An embittered home telephone and cellular consumer.
Post Script: Seriously, guys, do we need fees on top of fees? They’re only to help the Marketing fellas advertise $19.99 when it’s more like $27+tax. Some of us consumers have actually gotten wise to this.
I first noticed the Telus $2.95/month “network access” charge after it had been going for several months. I looked back on my bills and sure enough, the month before it started there was a fine print notice on the back of the bill telling me what was coming. I called Telus to point out that I hadn’t made a long distance phone call via Telus for many years and to inquire why they wanted to change me for somthing I never used. After some argument the nice lady offered to set up call restriction on my line (but she DID NOT tell me there would be a $10.00 fee to cancel it later). We then discussed the several months of fees I had already paid. She flatly refused to refund them. Her theory was that I had been notified on my bill and I was OBLIGATED to read every word printed on all pages of the bill EVERY MONTH!
Bottom line: Within a minute after hanging up the phone on Miss Telus, I was on the phone to my local cable company (Shaw) and I am no longer a Telus customer. The Shaw phone service has worked flawlessly, offers more features, clearer sound, and my expenditure for phone and Internet serivice is $10.00 a month less than it used to be. What’s not to like???
Thank you Telus for working hard enough to so totally alienate me as a customer that I overcame my inertia and made the switch! Good Job Telus!
Vince