TORONTO – An Ontario Court is allowing class-action lawsuits against Bell and Telus to proceed.
According to a Toronto Star report Friday, the lawsuit concerns a practice in which calls are rounded up to the farthest minute. For example, a call that lasts one minute and one second is rounded off to two minutes for billing purposes.
The suit alleges that while Bell and Telus had previously billed customers on a per-second basis, they changed their practices in mid-2002 so that customers were billed on a per-minute basis, with calls being rounded up to the farthest minute. This change was not disclosed by either telecom until the end of the class periods.
The report says that the class actions were certified on behalf of Canadian residents who subscribed to Bell services and were billed by the minute between August 18, 2006, and October 1, 2009, and Ontario residents who subscribed to Telus services and were billed by the minute between August 18, 2006, and July 1, 2010.
