Telus Wants You to Repay Gift Cards and Free TVs If You Cancel Early

Telus wants the CRTC to keep wireless and home internet trial periods at 15 days instead of doubling them to 30, and to let carriers claw back the value of gift cards, free TVs and other promo perks when you cancel a contract early.

Both asks come from the same CRTC filing in which Telus asked the regulator to override provincial consumer protection laws and allow four-year phone financing. The CRTC is drafting a single consumer code to replace the Wireless Code, the Internet Code and the TV code.

Under today’s Wireless Code and Internet Code, anyone who signs a contract with an early cancellation fee gets a trial period of at least 15 calendar days. Customers who self-identify as having a disability get at least 30 days, and on wireless, double the usage allowance. The CRTC’s draft of the new code would give everyone at least 30 days.

Telus’ proposed edits to the draft cross out the 30 and write in 15. The 30-day trial would stay only for customers who self-identify as having a disability, using wording lifted from the Internet Code. Telus argues the draft piles on new and expanded obligations that “would drastically increase administrative burden and compliance costs for service providers, in the absence of any data indicating that such changes are necessary to improve the consumer experience.”

Telus’ own website, oddly enough, tells people switching to Telus they can “cancel within 30 days and get your money back,” and its switching page invites you to try the network for 30 days. So Telus is happy to advertise 30 days. It just doesn’t want a rule that says it has to.

The second ask is about the freebies carriers use to win you over, which tend to multiply around Black Friday, especially after Rogers and Telus raised wireless prices by $5 this month. Right now, the code’s early cancellation fee rules only deal with subsidized devices. Telus wants “subsidized device” replaced with a much broader term, “economic inducement.”

In Telus’ proposed definition, that covers subsidized, financed and rented phones, tablets and smartwatches, plus gifts with purchase such as TVs, laptops, game consoles and prepaid credit cards, along with gift cards, retail credits, rate discounts and “promotional perks.” Here’s how Telus puts it:

“regardless of form, if a customer receives a financial benefit in exchange for a term service commitment, early cancellation should trigger an obligation to repay the unamortized portion of that benefit.”

For perks that aren’t devices, Telus would set the value at the “fair market value” of the benefit, minus anything you paid for it. Telus says the current wording creates “uncertainty” about whether carriers can recover those perks, and that clearer rules would let carriers “offer innovative, high-value promotional perks.” The change would reach the trial period too. To cancel without penalty during the trial, you’d have to return any economic inducement in near-new condition, not just the phone or a gift with purchase.

Telus also wants the code to spell out cancellation fees on device rental plans, where you hand the phone back at the end of the term or make a final payment to keep it. Telus sells this kind of plan as Bring-It-Back. Its example: on a $1,000 phone with a $400 buyout, the most you’d owe for cancelling early and returning the phone is $600, which is the retail price minus the buyout. Beyond that, Telus says rental plans don’t need any special rules.

The CRTC hasn’t decided anything yet, and its public hearing on the new code starts November 30 in Gatineau. If Telus gets its way, you’d have half as long to decide whether a new plan works for you, and that free TV could show up on your final bill.

Would you still take a free TV or gift card with a new plan if you had to pay it back for leaving early?