By Ahmad Hathout
MONTREAL – A Quebec resident has been approved to represent a class of plaintiffs to sue Bell for what she alleges is an illegal tactic used by the telecom’s sales reps.
Marie-Josee Langlois-Vinet filed an application in November 2021 to the Quebec Superior Court for certification of a class of plaintiffs after she alleged a Bell sales rep showed up to her door in February 2019 to sell her services but didn’t have a physical contract on them to provide to her.
Instead, the contract details were done over the phone with a remote representative.
That practice, Langlois-Vinet argues, violates Quebec’s door-to-door sales law under the Consumer Protection Act, as representatives require a permit to sell services that were done on site.
On July 4, the court approved the class action, which will be for any Quebec resident who was sold services by Bell from June 23, 2018. The purpose of the decision was not to decide the merits of the case, but to find if the plaintiff had made her case for a class to be certified.
“The proposed class action indicates that Bell Canada would use a scheme which consists of adding a dummy step and non-essential by which it tries to give the appearance that the contract with the consumer solicited during a visit to the consumer’s residence, was concluded remotely, and this, in order to remove all of its solicitation activities and door-to-door sales to the application of the provisions,” the decision said.
Langlois-Vinet is seeking punitive damages of $1,000 per member.
Bell argues that this was just a matter of a contract that was concluded at a distance. It also said the class cannot be approved because it has no chance of success, as the plaintiff wouldn’t know the contracts details of anyone else in the proposed class, according to the decision.
