The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) says it may take until December to complete its review of Telus’ application to add a credit card surcharge to customer bills.
The CRTC detailed the delay in a letter to Telus last Thursday after the commission’s previous 45 business-day deadline had passed. However, the letter does not appear to be available on the CRTC website yet, with details only made available via a Globe and Mail report so far.
Specifically, the CRTC said it may need until December 6th to complete its analysis in part due to the high number of public comments. There are currently over 4,300 interventions, many of which raise concerns about affordability and high prices.
Telus first filed the application in August and has since filed a response with the CRTC defending its decision to add a credit card surcharge, calling the fee “just and reasonable.”
It’s also worth noting that the application only applies to a small subset of Telus customers and that the provider doesn’t need approval to apply the fee to the majority of its customers. Last month, Telus emailed customers about the incoming change with ‘Lorem ipsum’ filler text, sparking an angry (and humourous) outcry on social media.
The credit card fee debacle traces back to the result of a lawsuit against credit card companies. Credit card companies previously included clauses in agreements with merchants to prevent this, but the lawsuit enables businesses to pass these fees on to customers.
So far, Telus seems to be the only one of the Big Three Canadian carriers planning to implement credit card processing fees. Rogers told MobileSyrup that it has no plans to add a fee “at this time,” while Bell hasn’t indicated one way or another.
Source: The Globe and Mail
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