Manitoba and Quebec are two provinces that have legislation to protect their consumers when it comes to cellphones. Bill 60 was an amendment to the Consumer Protection Act in Quebec in 2010 to allow consumers to cancel cellphone contracts without paying cancellation fees and other penalties, along with a clear stipulation of terms and policies. Manitoba recently passed similar legislation, and joins Quebec as only two provinces in the country to have such protections.
Telus was the first Canadian carrier to eliminate cancellation fees altogether back in June of this year (yet, there’s still a $50 ‘admin fee’), and now a leaked document hints Rogers will revise their early cancellation fee (ECF) policy in January 2012 to almost do the same:
The government is is planning to extend these changes to Manitoba in 2012. To lead the change, Rogers is proactively making updates to how our customers in all remaining non-regulated provinces are serviced when cancelling or making changes to their existing wireless services.
The new cancellation policy will result in customers paying back Rogers the subsidized amount from handsets plus $12.50. This cost of cancellation policy is known internally at Rogers as ‘Economic Inducement‘.
Here’s an example of how the policy would apply if you signed a three year term and paid $159 for a 16GB iPhone 4S (worth $649), but decided to cancel after one year.
You take the total hardware savings ($490) and divide it by the number of months in the signed term (36) times the number of months remaining (24), then add $12.50.
Update 1: Here’s an easier illustration to show the cancellation fee paid of $339.17 (via @jasontsang):
So if you plan on cancelling your Rogers contract, the amount you pay will come down to the subsidy you received–choose your devices carefully!
Thoughts on this upcoming new policy?
[via Technapedia]
