Telus asks CRTC permission to add 1.5% credit card surcharge to customer bills

Canadians who pay their cellphone bill with a credit card could soon see an extra fee every month, if Canada's telecom regulator approves a proposal currently before them.

Telecom company Telus is asking the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for permission to add a 1.5 per cent surcharge to the bills of customers who pay their bill using a credit card. If approved, it would be in place starting as soon as October.

For a theoretical customer in Alberta whose cellphone bill is $100, the charge would bring their bill to $106.66 — $100 for their basic bill, plus $5 for GST, a $1.58 surcharge for the new fee on top of that, plus another 8 cents in GST on the surcharge.

"The company plans to provide advance notices of the fee to its existing customers starting in mid-August," Telus said in its letter to the regulator.

The company is asking the regulator to decide on the proposal by Sept. 7 and would like to start levying the new charge as of Oct. 17, and while the CRTC must rule on the matter, in a statement to CBC News the telecom company made the plan sound like a done deal.

"Starting in October, Telus mobility and home services customers choosing to make a bill payment with a credit card will be charged a 1.5 per cent credit card processing fee," Telus told CBC News in a statement. 

"This fee helps us recover a portion of the processing costs we incur to accept credit card payments, and the average cost will be around $2 for most customers," the company said, adding that it can easily be avoided by paying through a bank, via a debit transaction, or other means.

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Telus' rationale for the move stems from a development this summer, when credit card firms including Visa and MasterCard agreed to a settlement that will see them refund millions of dollars worth of credit card processing fees that merchants have paid them over the years. Crucially, that settlement also gives businesses permission to start charging customers those fees directly starting in October, which is what Telus is trying to do.

Previously, many merchants weren't allowed to charge customers directly for the fees that credit companies charge them for processing sales. Such fees can range from less than one per cent of the sale, to more than three per cent for some premium cards.

Because just about every part of its business is regulated by the CRTC, Telus needs the regulator to start charging fees that consumers can expect to start seeing from a variety of merchants soon.

CBC News reached out to Rogers and Bell to see if they have any similar plans in the works, but representatives of both companies did not reply to that request within one business day.

Some wireless customers aren't enthused by the idea. Kenneth Hart of Windsor, Ont., a Telus customer for 15 years, calls the plan "a money grab."

"It's a bad business move," he told CBC News in an interview. "They have some accountants telling them this is good. But then you talk about the PR costs, the reputational cost, and it could create ... dissatisfaction for those customers who are already ... not satisfied."