jorno319 said

A combination of the CRTC rejecting Telus' application to apply the fee to CRTC regulated services and customer backlash.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine.....-1.6882341

https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine.....-1.6678764

"While Telus didn't need the CRTC's approval to add the surcharge to its unregulated services, the CRTC is very concerned about this practice as it goes against affordability and consumer interest," the regulator said, noting that the fees disproportionately hurt the most vulnerable consumers.

"The CRTC is sending a clear message to Telus and other telecommunications service providers that are thinking of imposing such a fee on their customers."

The regulator said that if the practice continues, it will consider all options at its disposal.

"We heard Canadians loud and clear: close to 4,000 of you told us that you should not be subjected to an additional fee based on the method you choose to pay your bill," CRTC chair Ian Scott said. "We expect the telecommunications industry to treat Canadians with respect and do better."

Ah Yes ⬆️ ... It's all coming back to me now.

The question now is ... will we get a Déjà Vu, on this❓

Time will tell . . .

Dean

Dean said
.
I can't remember . . .

What convinced Telus to back-off, on their attempted CC processing fee❓
Dean  

A combination of the CRTC rejecting Telus' application to apply the fee to CRTC regulated services and customer backlash.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine.....-1.6882341

https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine.....-1.6678764

"While Telus didn't need the CRTC's approval to add the surcharge to its unregulated services, the CRTC is very concerned about this practice as it goes against affordability and consumer interest," the regulator said, noting that the fees disproportionately hurt the most vulnerable consumers.

"The CRTC is sending a clear message to Telus and other telecommunications service providers that are thinking of imposing such a fee on their customers."

The regulator said that if the practice continues, it will consider all options at its disposal.

"We heard Canadians loud and clear: close to 4,000 of you told us that you should not be subjected to an additional fee based on the method you choose to pay your bill," CRTC chair Ian Scott said. "We expect the telecommunications industry to treat Canadians with respect and do better."

What convinced Telus to back-off, on their attempted CC processing fee❓

Dean

Wrayzor said
Make sure you have a balance owing before over-paying. They don't seem to allow overpayment when you have a zero or negative balance.

That was my experience when attempting to get the 1.5x before it goes away.  

The 1.5x can only go up to the value of the Rogers/Shaw billing amounts on the CC statement. Otherwise, it defaults to 1% cash back on other charges.

Example: If I have a Rogers charge of $150 on the statement, I can only use $100 of the reward amount to get the 1.5x = $150 credit on the Rogers charge. I ran into that limitation this month. I am assuming I have one more crack at 1.5x for my Shaw bill that will be posted before Nov 18th.

That was my experience when attempting to get the 1.5x before it goes away.

Just before November 18, I'm going to apply all my earned cash back against previous Rogers related purchases to get $1.50 against those purchases for every $1 of earned cash back.

I might overpay my Rogers-related bills by a few months shortly before January 15 to earn 5% cash back before I have to pay the 1.6% credit card processing fee.

Norman1 said
One could consider applying for a Rogers Red Mastercard.

5% cash back on charges for Rogers, Fido, or Shaw bills by the time the 1.6% credit card processing fee kicks in on January 17, 2027. 2% cash back on other charges for having an eligible Rogers service.  

So you are saying one gets 5% cash back on Rogers purchases charged to Rogers MC starting Nov 18 but you will pay 1.6% service charge eff Jan 17 for using a CC. Could be worse. I guess the Cash Back $ accrued is gone on Nov 18 if u dont use it before Nov 18 - is that correct?

5% cash back on charges for Rogers, Fido, or Shaw bills by the time the 1.6% credit card processing fee kicks in on January 17, 2027. 2% cash back on other charges for having an eligible Rogers service.

As for myself, in this case the CC I use (Tangerine) pays me a 2.0% reward, so I'm still 'Slightly' ahead.

As The Stomach Turns . . .

Dean

For me, that would be $120 annually, as I am currently getting $10/mo Auto-Pay Discount on my Rogers bill.

Keep the Auto-Pay Discount on your existing plan
As long as you keep your current plan (already receiving the Auto-Pay Discount) and stay on an eligible payment method, you’ll keep the discount. If you make changes as of July 23, 2026 (home services) or September 15, 2026 (mobile), you’ll need to update to a Rogers Bank credit card or pre-authorized debit to keep the discount.

In my area, I know most of them and overhear how they talk about the 'suckers' who give them money from their cars. It's a very lucrative scam; often netting hundreds of dollars every day. A very few are truly homeless, but the vast majority have residences.

I have seen some come out of their houses, walk to their back fence, go through and walk to the nearest corner to immediately become 'homeless'. Others, I have followed home and watched them go through their front doors. I have also watched others arrive by bus or been dropped off by car to 'work' their streets. One wheelchair-bound fraudster had a couple of friends help hoist him onto the median before perpetrating his fraudulent scheme.

Make sure one is accessing TransUnion's site when supplying info to activate the free credit monitoring:

The CEO of Canada's largest grocery retailer is apologizing to about two million shoppers for a data breach earlier this year where hackers accessed private information, including names, addresses, phone numbers, birthdates and purchase details.

…

The company is offering two years of free credit monitoring and identity restoration services through TransUnion. Impacted shoppers have until Feb. 28, 2027 to enroll.
…

Understanding credit monitoring services

Consumers should know that credit monitoring services offer limited protection, warned Cat Coode, a Waterloo, Ont.-based privacy and data strategist.

"It only covers if someone is going to use your information in order to apply for a credit card or apply for certain government documents. It doesn't cover the spectrum of the things that you could do with that data," she told CBC News on Friday.

"The privacy issue can never be resolved … Once your data is available, it is available. ... You can change your credit card number, but you can't change your birthdate."
…

Scammers can send e-mails about a real situation that contains a link to their bogus info gathering site instead of the real signup site.

We may have a few experts in this group.

We definitely have a very wide range of awareness and preparedness.

An exchange of facts and strategies can't hurt.

My $1 ...

Three law firms in the Greater Toronto Area have been put into receivership after being accused of mishandling millions in client funds during real estate transactions – allegations that an Ontario Superior Court justice warned could be just “the tip of an iceberg.”

Justice Sean Dunphy issued an order last week appointing accounting firm Doane Grant Thornton LLP as the receiver to take control of Simran Law Professional Corp. of Brampton, Ont., and JP Mann Law Firm Professional Corp. of Mississauga.

In his ruling, Justice Dunphy said the mishandling of legal trust accounts during real estate transactions has been occurring “with distressing regularity,” and that “if left unaddressed, represents an exceptionally grave attack on the profession of law at large and the integrity of our civil legal system.”

In a separate ruling on Friday, Justice Dunphy also issued an order to put RSG Law – the firm founded by former Liberal MP Rajvinder Grewal – under the control of receiver AlixPartners Advisory Inc. The firm has been facing mounting civil lawsuits alleging it was at the centre of a series of frauds against its own clients and their lenders.

Mr. Grewal or RSG Law are named in more than 30 civil cases, many involving allegations of trust-account manipulation or mortgage fraud.

“I shall refrain from using more superlatives to describe the shocking scope of the fraud that has been laid in front of me in relation to the operation of that firm’s trust account,” Justice Dunphy wrote in Friday’s court order. The allegations of fraud have not been proven in court.

Mr. Grewal has not been suspended from working, but has agreed not to practice law while he awaits a disciplinary hearing at Ontario’s Law Society Tribunal.

A rash of similar cases where lawyers allegedly violated their client’s trust and misappropriated their money have ignited a debate in the legal profession about how to ensure clients and the public are protected.

“Lawyers themselves need to raise the bar, that’s why we’re self-regulated,” said Joseph Berljawsky, managing partner of Property Law Firm CB LLP, one of the largest real estate law firms in the country.

In his decision involving Simran Law, Justice Dunphy said there were 25 occasions since February where lawyer Simranjyot Kaur represented sellers in a real estate deal, while lawyer Jagpal Mann of JP Mann Law Firm acted for the purchasers. More than $18-million in mortgage funds from a variety of smaller lenders were paid into the lawyers’ trust accounts, intended for paying out mortgages held by some of the country’s largest banks.

Instead, the money went missing.

“This is NOT a ‘one off’ case of records having been inadequately maintained or sloppy ledger-keeping,” Justice Dunphy wrote. “Not one of the mortgages was in fact discharged with the mortgage advance proceeds. Solicitors’ undertakings to discharge the mortgages were not honoured … None of the funds have been returned or accounted for.”

The application for a receiver to be appointed was brought by the title insurer in each of the transactions, FCT Insurance Company Ltd.

FCT was also the title insurer in three civil cases where lenders sought to recover mishandled trust funds from Brampton lawyer Anil K. Sharma. In an Oct. 14 court order on those matters, Justice Dunphy issued a sharp rebuke to the Law Society of Ontario’s handling of real estate fraud by lawyers.

In Mr. Sharma’s cases, almost $5-million was allegedly misappropriated in a similar manner to other recent cases: Mortgage funds were taken into his legal trust fund, but were not remitted to the intended recipients.

In his order for Mr. Sharma’s case, Justice Dunphy wrote he was “shouting into the wind” about the seriousness of recent alleged frauds and the need for swifter action from the law society’s regulators or from any authority.

The law society hasn’t made any public announcements about professional sanctions against Mr. Sharma, Ms. Kaur or Mr. Mann. None of those lawyers responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Grewal’s lawyer, Simon Bieber of Adair Goldblatt Bieber LLP, said his client “sold his shares in RSG Law in 2023 and has not been in control of the trust account since then.”

In a statement, the law society said it had obtained a court order freezing Mr. Sharma’s trust account and could not comment on its investigations. However, the society said it “has been involved in the receivership applications and as part of the receiverships is taking steps to safeguard the solicitor-client privilege of all clients.”

Mr. Berljawsky has been pushing a series of reforms at the law society that would make trust-account abuse and mortgage fraud more difficult to commit – or at least would lead to speedier discovery.

Requiring a second professional’s signature (though not in the case of sole practitioners) for any trust-account transaction is a start, according to Mr. Berljawsky. But he said a more meaningful and pro-active step would be to make law firms send monthly reconciliation reports of their trust funds to the law society that could be checked against their bank account balances.

In his view, the current system places too much trust in lawyers to make the right decisions, effectively creating an honour system and not a regulatory one. Mr. Berljawsky is warning that lawyers could find themselves cut out of the lucrative real estate market entirely if reforms can’t restore the trust of the public and of financial institutions.

“We need to come together ... to make sure residential conveyancing is safer and better, or rightfully, we will lose our role in the process,” he said.