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BUSINESS PRACTICES AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT
[SBC 2004] CHAPTER 2
This Act is Current to June 11, 2014
Part 7 — Debt Collection
Division 1 — Prohibited Debt Collection Practices

Communication with debtor
116 (4) A collector must not continue to communicate with a debtor
    (a) except in writing, if the debtor
         (i) has notified the collector to communicate in writing only, and
         (ii) has provided a mailing address at which the debtor may be contacted,

The Supreme Court of British Columbia has confirmed Consumer Protection BC’s ruling that CBV Collection Services Ltd. (CBV), a national debt collection agency, broke the province’s consumer protection law. This judgment confirms Consumer Protection BC’s position that the company must stop attempting to contact debtors after the person has requested that communication be in writing only.

It’s simple - if a person requests communication in writing only, they are well within their right to do so. Collectors can’t keep trying to reach them by phone; this includes the use of auto-dialers.

A copy of the court’s full judgment is available on the Supreme Court of BC website. CBV has the right to file an appeal with the BC Court of Appeal within 30 days of the decision.

There is more to know about this, please read our press release for all the details.

Getting calls from a debt collector?
Debt collectors are allowed to contact you about the debts you owe. That being said, you have the right to be contacted in writing only. To request this, complete a “communication in writing only” form which can be found on this page of our website. Once you send the completed form to a debt collector with a proof of delivery (fax transmission report, registered letter receipt, etc.), they are not allowed to contact you by telephone.

Source: This came by email so there is no link

Supreme Court Judgement
CBV Collection Services Ltd. vs. Consumer Protection B.C. and Melissa La Croix
Doclet S152484

Tips to Reduce Unwanted Calls
Call Management Features
National Do Not Call List (DNCL)
- 30 -

Contacts
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Source: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=1148039&_ga=1.129497164.1592637156.1488374169

A Step By Step Guide for negotiating with Big Telecom customer service departments

Notes to Remember | Steps | Additional Help

For this guide, we will use Roaming charges as an example.

Notes to remember:
1.Understand that the full charge will not disappear. Have a realistic figure already in mind for what you are willing to pay.

2.Compare your usage with one of the several travel packs offered by your provider and determine if your usage would be fully covered by an option of lesser value than your current charges. This will be useful when negotiating.

3.The first line of customer service agents will have limited abilities in terms of crediting charges and will seldom make you the BEST offer.

4.ALWAYS REMAIN CALM, there is no point in getting frustrated at the agent, and this will only make them want to help you less. It is important to remember that they are also human; however they have protocols to follow. If there is a loophole available that they know of, they will be more inclined to help you, if you treat them with respect.

5.In relation to point d, if a client starts yelling or ranting, agents are trained to remain silent until the client is finished speaking. They will then proceed to ask you “may I continue now?” You can be sure if this happens to you in a conversation, the agent is already less sympathetic to you.

6.Keep in mind that the steps below can fluctuate, given that everything is always dealt on a case-by-case basis. However, they are guidelines for how the process should move (from the point of view of a consumer).



Steps:
1.Call in to your provider and speak to them about billing issues, make sure you speak to customer service and have not been transferred to accounts receivable.

2.Understand that in 90% of cases, the maximum offer that a first line agent can offer you is a 50% reduction of overages. If this is not satisfactory, make sure to escalate the request to a supervisor or manager.

3.When dealing with the supervisor, calmly explain the situation, i.e.; “Sir/Madam, I have been charged $22,000 for using data while roaming. I was never notified that the charges were mounting until it was too late and I find it unfair that I am being held responsible, when you ultimately had control of the situation and could have notified me of the impending charges.”
A supervisor’s goal at this point is to work with your to resolve this issue AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, remember that every minute on the phone dealing with these issues costs the providers.

4.The supervisor at this point will once again reiterate why the provider hold’s no responsibility in the matter. As they have ensured protecting themselves against the matter.

5.At this point, it is important to refuse to accept his answer, catching him off guard and having him work a little harder to try and reason with you (remember that the clock is ticking for him and there is the possibility of a line up of other callers wanting to speak to a supervisor which causes a caller backlog, costing the company money and resources). The goal is to find out why the company did not warn you earlier that charges were building up; to which his answer will ALWAYS be “it is not our responsibility”.
If they tell you that they did send a text and you didn’t receive it, depending on the provider, they more than likely made that up, once again this varies provider to provider.

6.Now try to take control of the call, inform the supervisor that you are willing to pay an amount, just not an exorbitant amount. Be pro-active and “right-fit” the situation. This means that if you were charged $300/70MB of Data with Rogers while in Mexico. A similar pack offering you 75MB is available for $225. Attempt to make a deal with them, telling the agent that you are willing to pay $225 for the data and act as if you have added a roaming pack.
There is a chance that they will offer this before hand, but it never hurts to be pro-active with them.

7.If the agent doesn’t accept your offer and will not make a reasonable offer, thank him for his time, but inform him that you will be sending a letter to the Office of the President. AGAIN ALWAYS ACT CALMLY.

8.Submit a letter to the Office of the President, inform them that you have tried to negotiate with a supervisor to no avail and that you would like to discuss this with someone further up.

9.They will contact you; remember that at this point you are costing the company more money in time and resources.

10.In most cases, the Office of the President will go ahead and right fit the charges for you. As discussed earlier, remember to establish a dollar figure of what you are expecting to pay. If you can come to a mutually satisfying settlement, you have successfully negotiated with your Telecom Provider.

11.If unsatisfied at this point, escalate your complaint to the Company Ombudsman. One of the advantages of this tactic is that the questioned charges will be set aside until a resolution takes place. Make sure to pay your pre-authorized amounts to keep your account in good order.

12.Find more ways to get access to better services and fix Canada’s broken cellphone market at: http://openmedia.ca/mistreated

13.It is helpful to diffuse one’s anger and frustration with some humor, if this applies, please check out:

click here for more

I have cell phone plan: unlimited talk time , unlimited long distance, unlimited e-mail, unlimited text, and unlimited web/data, from telus for $95.00 a month.

I was informed "this is because I have been a customer for the last 15 years with a cell phone plan".

The sales person at the store (earlier this year when my cell phone quit working and went to get a new phone) could not believe the plan telus offered me, and said she never heard of a plan like that. I told her "there is no plan like that and I make my own deal with telus, it's because I'm me".

Telus is slashing many of its international roaming rates for both mobile voice and data, less than a week after the release of a report that said Canada's charges were among the highest in the world.

Data roaming charges for Telus customers are being cut to $10 per megabyte for most destinations outside the U.S., a reduction of 60 per cent, the company announced Monday. The new rates come into effect June 27.

Voice calls will be $1.50 per minute in Western Europe, Mexico and Oceania (including Australia and New Zealand) and $2.50 per minute in the Middle East, the Carribean and Latin America, China, India and Africa — a reduction of 17 to 50 per cent, Telus said.

Most Canadian carriers already have comparable or cheaper roaming rates in the U.S. for customers who buy special travel packages.

Telus said its new international pricing is simpler for customers, who no longer have to buy separate bundles and passes in order to get reduced roaming rates.

Last Wednesday, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development released a report showing that Canadians travelling abroad paid the most among 34 OECD countries for one megabyte of data in a single day, if they were with one of Canada's two biggest wireless providers, Rogers and Bell.

At that time, Telus indicated that it planned to reduce its roaming rates soon, as it had recently negotiated cheaper rates with other carriers around the world.

The B.C. Women’s Hospital and Health Centre Foundation will have an additional digital mammography machine thanks to donations to the Telus Go Pink campaign.

The campaign raised more than $2 million for women’s breast health across Canada, and half of that was raised in B.C.

In May, Telus announced it would donate $25 from every pink Blackberry sold across Canada towards digital mammography machines in regional hospitals.

The timing is ideal as the B.C. Women’s Hospital is launching a flagship breast imaging and training centre in B.C. offering state-of-the-art digital mammography, slated to open in late 2011.

A $3 million donation from the Gordon Diamond family will support the creation of the Sadie Diamond Breast Health Imaging Centre at B.C. Women’s. The Diamond gift is enough for the hospital foundation to purchase two state-of-the-art digital mammography machines with tomosynthesis, the most advanced breast screening and diagnostic technology available today.

The Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) is contributing a further $1.1 million in operational funding, and the Telus donation will enable the hospital to purchase a third digital mammography machine.

“Expanding the Sadie Diamond Breast Health Imaging Centre from two to three digital mammography units will be a truly transformational gift for B.C. Women’s,” said Laurie Clarke, CEO of the B.C. Women’s Hospital & Health Centre Foundation.

“It will vastly increase the Hospital’s breast cancer screening and diagnostic capacity, enabling us to provide care to women faster with the most advanced equipment available on the market today.

“It will increase the scope of B.C. Women’s new breast cancer imaging centre, necessitating an expansion of the Centre’s current footprint, and a new location within the BC Women’s hospital campus.”

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