Chalk one up for the little guy: upstart Wind Mobile scored a victory Friday when the Competition Bureau slapped Rogers Communications with a lawsuit over a ‘misleading’ advertising campaign for its discount Chatr text-and-talk brand.
The federal competition watchdog asked the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to order Rogers to stop its ad campaign, and pay a $10 million fine, for claiming its Chatr mobile service risked fewer dropped calls than rival offerings from Wind Mobile and other new market entrants.
After a two-month investigation of technical data, the Competition Bureau says it concluded that ‘there is no discernible difference in dropped call rates between Rogers/Chatr and new entrants.’
Ken Campbell, CEO of Wind Mobile, which asked the Competition Bureau to investigate Rogers’ advertising campaign, applauded the legal action by the feds.
‘We are very proud of the quality of our network and could not allow unsubstantiated and misleading claims about its quality to go unchallenged,’ Campbell said in a statement.
‘Consumers deserve accurate information when making purchasing decisions and need to have confidence they are not being misled by false advertising campaigns,’ Melanie Aitken, commissioner of competition at the Competition Bureau, which referees corporate Canada for alleged market abuses, added in a statement.
From Playback Daily
