Hundreds of Rogers, Bell and Telus customers angry prices can increase during contract

Customers with Canada's three biggest telecom providers — Rogers, Bell and Telus — say they're frustrated by contracts that lock them into agreements but allow the companies to increase prices at the same time.

In hundreds of emails to Go Public, customers say they're fed up with unexpected increases to their monthly internet, TV and home phone bills during their contracts. 

They started writing after CBC News reported the story of Cathy Cooper, a Rogers Communications customer in Sidney, B.C., who was caught off guard when the company jacked up the monthly price of renting TV boxes by $7 apiece ($12 each for newer customers).

Melani Norman of Toronto wrote that she got her "first bill of a new three-year contract with Bell and the fees had increased by $5 a month for my TV before I even began." 

"It turns out that the promise Bell made me was false."

In email after email, telco customers say they were never told about language — often buried in the fine print — that says companies are allowed to increase the price of certain items during the term of a contract.

Some describe spending hours on the phone with customer service agents, trying to understand their bills and fighting for the original monthly price they believe they were guaranteed. 

Many said they found their contracts confusing.

A contract law expert says consumers have been complaining about one-sided telco contracts for almost two decades. 

"These contracts are long — and even if you read them, you need at least a university-level education to understand them," said Marina Pavlović, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa's faculty of law who specializes in consumer protection and digital society.

Pavlović says the contracts are a "trap by design" and that it's time for Canada's telco regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), to investigate.

"We need to rebalance them so that consumers feel that they're more protected."

Go Public asked Rogers, Bell and Telus to comment on the fact that customers feel misled. None would address the growing customer frustration.

Norman says she agreed to a three-year contract for TV, internet and home phone with Bell in August, and was quoted a monthly price over the phone.