Bell Canada fined $1.5 million for violating do-not-call and other rules
GATINEAU, Que. — Bell Canada has agreed to pay more than $1.5 million — a record amount — for violating the national do-not-call list and other rules, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced Monday.
The company was fined $1.3 million for violating the do-not-call rules, and agreed to donate another $266,000 for using automated calling devices to communicate with pre-paid customers without their consent.
The penalties total $1.566 million.
"These are the largest fines ever," said Andrea Rosen, the CRTC's chief telecommunications enforcement officer.
The calls made by Bell to customers on both the national and internal do-not-call lists originated from "independent telemarketers" from Canada and abroad who were hired by Bell to promote and sell their television, telephone, wireless and Internet services, the CRTC said.
The calls were placed between January and October of this year. The national do-not-call list was established in September 2008.
Rosen said the commission doesn't release specifics about complaints, but said fines can run up to $15,000 per violation.
Bell paid the $266,000 settlement to the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering at Concordia University in Montreal, said Rosen.
Telus paid a fee last month for violating the same rules.
"I think after the 300,000 complaints we've received over the past three years, it isn't surprising to see that companies are making mistakes," said Rosen.
"I don't think $1.3 million is the cost of doing business for anybody."
Last Friday, the CRTC announced a $500,000 penalty for a Calgary-based telemarketer Xentel DM Inc. It was fined for making 60 calls over the past 18 months to people on the national do-not-call list.
Before that, 22 companies had been fined a total of $75,000.
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