Bell ExpressVu - The Shakespeare Decision

This is a potentially promising development for everyone who uses any telecom or broadcast service. It is a controversial decision, and since I am certainly not a lawyer I can't say if it is likely to be sustained on appeal.

Apart from the "administrative fees" covered in this particular case, there are more that we are all aware of. Perhaps the most ridiculous are those "system access charges" for cell phone and long distance service. These are thinly disguised basic service charges that you must pay, and are named in a way to make them appear as justified supplementary charges or even as charges required by the government. They are careful to never claim this, they just let the misleading names they give those fees lead customers into deceiving themselves.

Once upon a time Bell Canada and other telephone companies were stringently regulated on the fees they could charge for late payment of bills, service and equipment installation, unjustified service calls, and much more. A lot of it was nonsense and needed to be loosened up in our now more competitive market. The trouble is that the prices continued to rise past the point of reasonable cost recovery, and then even more fees were invented.

It doesn't end with telecom services. Think of all those shifting and unpredictable charges on air travel. Not only do they use these charges to claim that the basic fee (just like on your telecom bills) isn't changing, it's just all those pesky "extras" you are requesting. These fees are charged even when travelling on frequent flier points, making them far less valuable. Of course that is their intention.

As Shakespeare is so oft' quoted: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Or as more popularly quoted: "a rose is a rose by any other name." That's the value of this court decision. Calling a fee by any other name does not change it's true nature. In this court decision, ExpressVu's late fee administrative charge is fundamentally an interest charge. What they call it is not important. It's still a rose.

The same legal argument may very well apply to system access charges and all the rest of their ilk. This could be a huge win for consumers when dealing with quasi-monopolistic businesses. It just requires someone in Canada, someone with the tenacity of Peter de Wolf, to take on telecom service providers and the airlines.