Cable Company Posted Names Of Overdue Customers On Facebook

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I'm not sure how they do things in Canada, but publicly shaming overdue customers in the U.S. is a big no-no.

“We always got excuses from everybody,” a rep for Senga told the CBC about the decision to shame these customers. “Promissory notes and everything, and it never arrives. So we found the most effective way is to publicly post the names.”
 
Something tells me their in-house counsel is on holiday vacation and is going to have an aneurysm when they get back.
 
Anybody else come here expecting to see time warner or comcast?
 
It is illegal to do that here, in the great white north. This is why they were forced to take their posts down.
 
I love it. Should be done more often.

I'd post names of uninsured drivers if it was also possible.
 
On the topic of drivers, I like this method.

As for the cable company, why not just cancel the accounts? Or at least shut them off until they pay?
 
I love it. Should be done more often.

I'd post names of uninsured drivers if it was also possible.

This is why you're not in charge, thankfully. The company could have simply ya know, cut off the worst offenders. Having your name posted on FB for owing under $100? :confused:
 
Dumb they went the route but I am sure those that are very delinquent, probably do not care of the late fees, collection calls, etc..

I would just shut them off.
 
I see a lawsuit as well.

And I fully expected to see Rogers as the company doing it.
 
As for the cable company, why not just cancel the accounts? Or at least shut them off until they pay?

Because I would assume providing the service cost them practically nothing so the bill keep growing up and they can possibly eventually collect even more $. Even if only 1/10 ever pay I'm sure they still come up on top. Also they can send a collection agency on your ass.
 
Because I would assume providing the service cost them practically nothing so the bill keep growing up and they can possibly eventually collect even more $. Even if only 1/10 ever pay I'm sure they still come up on top. Also they can send a collection agency on your ass.

Exactly. Just like the banks used to do (more before Dodd Frank, but still happens).

"Hey, we paid your items in such an order that the $10 you were short in your bank account was caused by your $2 coffee, $2 bus ride, and $6 lunch, instead of the one rent check. That'll be $105 in overdraft fees."

And since you haven't paid it, we'll continually charge your account for being negative, resulting in about ~$500 in fees for a $10 overdraft, then complain about you being a massive deadbeat we're losing hundreds of (created out of thin air) dollars on."

Which is why we don't allow public debtor shaming as you don't know all sides.
 
Smart.

Make all the paying customers uncomfortable with your judgment and handling of their information.
 
Crap, the above post is in the wrong thread. Please disregard. /Or mods, please delete.
 
Something tells me their in-house counsel is on holiday vacation and is going to have an aneurysm when they get back.

Something tells me they don't have in-house counsel.

We aren't talking Comcast or Time Warner here. We're talking about a small cable company out in the middle of nowhere in the Northwest Territories that maybe has a few thousand customers at most.
 
before anyone gets too upset, the government has since told them to knock it off.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/privacy-commissioner-senga-services-1.3347760

this news came out about 2 days ago...we do have a lot of problems with our telecommunications companies here. the fact that i'm paying around $60/month for a 10mb cable connection just because i won't put up with bandwidth caps says something. having a cap would bring it down sure, but make my connection far more restricted (the caps usually aren't reasonable) and the cost savings isn't really all that much. probably less than $20.

so in short, no it isn't legal here either.
 
heh... a Chinese food place near my parents house used to hang bounced checks on the wall behind the cash register, in an effort to publicly shame them.
 
before anyone gets too upset, the government has since told them to knock it off.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/privacy-commissioner-senga-services-1.3347760

this news came out about 2 days ago...we do have a lot of problems with our telecommunications companies here. the fact that i'm paying around $60/month for a 10mb cable connection just because i won't put up with bandwidth caps says something. having a cap would bring it down sure, but make my connection far more restricted (the caps usually aren't reasonable) and the cost savings isn't really all that much. probably less than $20.

so in short, no it isn't legal here either.
problem with Canada is prices are so varied for no reason other than because, much like the US it boils down to competition. I pay $70/month in Canada for 100/20 fiber connection (but I actually get 107/30) from Telus, yet go one city over and they pay $60/month for 20/5 connection because Telus doesn't have fiber there. Same with cell phone, here in alberta you pay what? $80/month for 3-4 gb of data, but go to sask or Manitoba and $70/month gets you unlimited minutes and 10-15gb of data because their provincial government run their own cell companies so the big ones like Telus and Bell have to compete
 
I can't believe anyone is defending deadbeats. It is very simple pay your bill don't get posted. If you can't afford to pay your bills don't order the service. Would love to see more of this behaviour across the board. People need to learn to pay their debts, all their debts and on time as agreed.
 
illegal here in Canada as well, they cant release your info under the privacy act unless you sign a waiver specifically for that so it will probably cost them alot more to fight what they did than what was owed to them in the end
 
I can't believe anyone is defending deadbeats. It is very simple pay your bill don't get posted. If you can't afford to pay your bills don't order the service. Would love to see more of this behaviour across the board. People need to learn to pay their debts, all their debts and on time as agreed.

Deadbeat or not, they deserve the same privacy as you and I.
 
As for the cable company, why not just cancel the accounts? Or at least shut them off until they pay?
Yeah I don't get why that went out of style. I mean I understand things like water/electricity not being forced off it for missing a single bill just because of how essential those are to survival, but TV/internet is not essential to anything other than maybe personal sanity.
 
problem with Canada is prices are so varied for no reason other than because, much like the US it boils down to competition. I pay $70/month in Canada for 100/20 fiber connection (but I actually get 107/30) from Telus, yet go one city over and they pay $60/month for 20/5 connection because Telus doesn't have fiber there. Same with cell phone, here in alberta you pay what? $80/month for 3-4 gb of data, but go to sask or Manitoba and $70/month gets you unlimited minutes and 10-15gb of data because their provincial government run their own cell companies so the big ones like Telus and Bell have to compete

Manitoba Tel (MTS) was privatized almost 20 years ago. (most of us didn't want that to happen... but if you elect cheating morons that junk can happen, Filmon our Premier at the time now sits on the MTS board I think that says it all ) :)

Still MTS has been pretty competitive, I would still say our rates are to high for the service returned. Also when MTS was private they ensured our most Northern communities had good comms access, now they are hardly going out of there way to make sure those communities get good upgrades. Many of us wish MTS had remained a Public Utility.
 
I can't believe anyone is defending deadbeats. It is very simple pay your bill don't get posted. If you can't afford to pay your bills don't order the service. Would love to see more of this behaviour across the board. People need to learn to pay their debts, all their debts and on time as agreed.

Schadenfreude strong with this one.

It's all great until it happens to you, then suddenly it's an invasion of privacy.

Because cable companies have never, ever had issues with their billing systems, erroneously charged a customer, neglected to close an account, or anything of the sort.
 
Deadbeat or not, they deserve the same privacy as you and I.

We will have to disagree on that. People should know if their neighbours don't pay their bills. Deadbeat users raise the costs for all. They need to humiliated and have their names tarnished. I'd support bringing back the pillory perhaps then people would reacquire some self decency.
 
I can't believe anyone is defending deadbeats. It is very simple pay your bill don't get posted. If you can't afford to pay your bills don't order the service. Would love to see more of this behaviour across the board. People need to learn to pay their debts, all their debts and on time as agreed.

Because the billing department at a cable company is known to be 100% accurate and never makes a mistake.
 
Because the billing department at a cable company is known to be 100% accurate and never makes a mistake.

Did you even read the article?

“We know everybody, so we give people a chance,” explained the rep. “It’s the people who dodge us on a regular basis who are the ones being shamed.”
 
Rogers here in Canada sent me to collections, I cancelled my cell with them and left my cable TV package alone, well they assigned me a new account number and i was paying a closed account off

collection department calls and says im over due blah blah... they look and see ive "over paid" a closed account in my name 450$ for the last like 5 months, they still wanted me to pay the current cable bill out of pocket and theyd apply the over payments as credits in a few weeks time once approved

after much arguing they gave me my new account number and moved the balance over to the outstanding account, problem is you cant fight with these corporations becasue soon as they send you off to colelections the damage is done and your credit takes a hit, your fault or not.
 
We will have to disagree on that. People should know if their neighbours don't pay their bills. Deadbeat users raise the costs for all. They need to humiliated and have their names tarnished. I'd support bringing back the pillory perhaps then people would reacquire some self decency.

Sorry, but it is 100% illegal. Any company that did this to me I would have an entire law firm crawling up their legal asses. A lovely thing about Canada is that we have some pretty heavy privacy laws to protect us from asshats like that cable company. We wouldn't even have to make a libel case of it. Just publicly announcing our name as a customer without our written permission is grounds for a ruinous lawsuit. There are some flaming hoops that businesses have to jump thru in Canada with regards to client privacy.

Because the billing department at a cable company is known to be 100% accurate and never makes a mistake.
^ this ^
 
We will have to disagree on that. People should know if their neighbours don't pay their bills. Deadbeat users raise the costs for all. They need to humiliated and have their names tarnished. I'd support bringing back the pillory perhaps then people would reacquire some self decency.

Where does that kind of thinking stop? Who will we shame next? Whos definition of decency?

Should they start shaming customers that watch tons of porn? How about shaming everyone torrenting the latest walking dead? Should we shame those that visit the KKK websites? How about those that visit looked at the apple cloud leaked pictures? No company should ever be using their data to publicly shame anybody, period, end of discussion. This is a door you just dont open...

Who the fuck do you think you are that you believe you should know your neighbors financial status? Should we start labeling every house with their credit score too now?
 
Who the fuck do you think you are that you believe you should know your neighbors financial status? Should we start labeling every house with their credit score too now?

If my neighbour is costing me money, which not paying for their services does, it should be my right to know.

As for the rest of your noise ... reductio ad absurdum
 
Where does that kind of thinking stop? Who will we shame next? Whos definition of decency?

Should they start shaming customers that watch tons of porn? How about shaming everyone torrenting the latest walking dead? Should we shame those that visit the KKK websites? How about those that visit looked at the apple cloud leaked pictures? No company should ever be using their data to publicly shame anybody, period, end of discussion. This is a door you just dont open...

Who the fuck do you think you are that you believe you should know your neighbors financial status? Should we start labeling every house with their credit score too now?

So butt hurt. You must be on 2 of the 3 you listed. Don't be a scum bag.
 
Something tells me they don't have in-house counsel.

We aren't talking Comcast or Time Warner here. We're talking about a small cable company out in the middle of nowhere in the Northwest Territories that maybe has a few thousand customers at most.

Good point. But if it was Comcast or TWC, they'd have an entire army of in-house counsel, not one lonely person out on a skiing holiday.
 
If my neighbour is costing me money, which not paying for their services does, it should be my right to know.

As for the rest of your noise ... reductio ad absurdum

Oh irony... So privacy should mean nothing when someone owes a cable company because of your ignorant assumption that it costs you money somehow. Please tell me more about my logical fallacies.
 
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