Shows increase in instances of service providers submitting incomplete info on complaints
OTTAWA – The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) today announced it has published its 2021 Compliance Monitoring Report (CMR), which shows it flagged around 2,400 alleged compliance breaches of its procedural code and accepted 14,923 complaints last year.
The report contains data from Jan. 1, 2021, to Dec. 31, 2021, and highlights areas of non-compliance by participating service providers (PSPs).
“To ensure that the CCTS can provide free and effective services to consumers whenever they need it, our participating service providers must comply with a range of requirements,” said Howard Maker, commissioner and CEO of the CCTS, in a press release announcing the publication of the report. “This includes following the rules of the CCTS’ complaint-handling process, promoting customer awareness of the CCTS in accordance with the CCTS Public Awareness Plan, and paying CCTS fees.”
CCTS considers failure by PSPs to implement mutually accepted resolutions, recommendations and decisions, which are binding on PSPs, a major non-compliance issue. The monitoring report shows there were 16 confirmed breaches of this requirement in 2021.
“Notably, all 16 confirmed breaches related to non-implementation of resolutions,” the report says. All breaches were resolved once the PSPs were notified of their non-compliance. “Where a resolution was not implemented, the PSPs indicated it was as a result of human error or other issues beyond their control, e.g. postal issues,” according to the report.
In cases where no resolution is agreed upon between the PSP and customer, the PSP must provide CCTS with a written response to the complaint that addresses all allegations. The PSP must also provide supporting documentation.
“In 2021, the CCTS observed a resurgence of breaches regarding “unresolved” responses at pre-investigation with 1,149 alleged breaches,” the report explains. “In other words, the CCTS continues to observe a concerning trend that PSPs are not fulfilling their requirement to provide a response or all supporting documentation with their response to an unresolved complaint at the initial pre-investigation level.” (Please see chart above.)
In 2020, the CCTS started to track how many of these breaches at pre-investigation were due to PSPs not providing any response. In 2021, there were 146 such breaches, which is fewer than in 2020. However, despite the improvement, CCTS considers the number of breaches in this category in 2021 to be very high as PSP responses “to unresolved complaints is so fundamental to CCTS’ processes,” the report says.
While there was a reduction in the number of instances where PSPs did not respond at the pre-investigation stage, there was a considerable increase in instances where PSPs provided incomplete responses.
“In 2020, there were 527 alleged breaches and in 2021, the CCTS flagged almost double the number of instances – 996 alleged breaches – in which PSPs submitted an incomplete response to an unresolved complaint,” the report says.
The CCTS notes in the report it has provided PSPs with guidance on what documentation is required and says it will continue to engage with PSPs so they better understand what is required of them.
For the full report, please click here.
Chart borrowed from CCTS’ 2021 Compliance Monitoring Report.
