Last week, Public Mobile surprised customers by informing them the coveted $40/4GB plan was increasing by $10 per month, despite previously promising the price would never change for active customers.
Obviously, people were upset and started to file complaints with the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) over the issue. We now have a number on just how many complaints were received by the CCTS, leading up to the reversal by Public Mobile.
CCTS Commissioner and CEO, Howard Maker, informed iPhone in Canada in a statement to say, “Last week’s events involving Public Mobile and the customers of its $40/4GB and $120/12 GB plan were very instructive. Consumers felt angry and misled, and used their collective voices to effect change.”
Maker explains on top of hearing customer views on social media, the CCTS also received a huge number of complaints in just 1.5 days. He says “In the day and a half before Public Mobile changed course, consumers had filed over 1,600 complaints with the CCTS about this issue, using our secure online interactive questionnaire.”
“I can tell you that Public Mobile was well aware that its customers were contacting us en masse,” added Maker.
The CCTS reiterated when filing a complaint, it is imperative customers first contact their telecom about the issue and let them try to resolve it. Otherwise, your complaint with the CCTS may fail to move forward, as telecoms can reject complaints which do not follow procedure.
Maker concluded to say “As the Commissioner of the CCTS, I thank you for letting your readers know about their right to complain to the CCTS, and the option of submitting their complaint online. One of the things that we took away from these events is that our online questionnaire is easy for consumers to find and simple to use. That’s good news.”
The initial decision by Public Mobile to increase the price of the $40/4GB plan has turned out to be a devastating one, as their share of CCTS complaints have skyrocketed.
In 2017, Public Mobile accepted 104 CCTS complaints, out of a total 9,097 total complaints received, according to the latter’s annual report. This year, over 1,600 have already been filed against Public Mobile. It’ll be interesting to see how many of these will be accepted, as Telus’ prepaid brand will now most likely make the top 10 for complaints received, and see an astronomical year over year increase.
