Bell Canada Fined $1.3 Million for Violating Do-Not-Call Lists

There’s nothing I hate more than fielding unsolicited phone calls, especially in the evening. I added my home and cellphone numbers to the Canadian ‘Do Not Call’ list a long time ago now, but that doesn’t seem to keep some businesses from ringing me up to annoy the crap out of me. With that in mind, a bit of shocking news hit us today regarding the Canadian heavyweight carrier, Bell. According to the Montreal Gazette, Bell has been fined more than $1.3 million for making unwanted telemarketing calls to Canadians. C’mon Bell, how could you?

The fine of $1.3 million is a record amount in Canada for a violation of the national do-not-call list. So what got the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission all in a huff over this?

Turns out that calls made by ‘independent telemarketers’ to customers on national and internal do-not-call lists were made between January and October of this year… and they were generating quite a few complaints, to say the least. While it wasn’t Bell specifically making the calls, it WAS Bell that hired these ‘independents’ to call on their behalf. If they thought sidestepping penalties by hiring out was a good plan, it’s time to re-evaluate.

When all is said and done, some good may come out of this. First off, all carriers should now be well warned of such practices. Make a boo-boo, and the CRTC is going to slap your wrist with a hefty fine (Even though the folks at Bell, TELUS and Rogers can easily afford it). Second, Bell has agreed to donate over $250,000 to Concordia University’s Institute for Information Systems Engineering. Funny how that works, eh?

Should be interesting to see if Bell cranks up the PR machine to push out some more ‘charitable’ releases over the next few days… If they do, and PR folks, if you’re reading this… please don’t call me to tell me about it. I’m on the do-not-call list.