OTTAWA—The CRTC received more than 10,000 complaints from consumers about Bell Canada telemarketers, including at least one alleged death threat, the Toronto Star has learned.

While both the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and Bell Canada refused to say how many complaints were received from the public, the Star confirmed it was 10,000-plus and that the telemarketers’ calls continued for about a year before the agency finally moved against Bell.

Bell was recently fined $1.3 million for calling tens of thousands of consumers on the Do Not Call list.

The calls from the telemarketing companies on contract — some of them in India — were at times aggressive and abusive, documents show. In some cases telemarketers cursed at people who showed no interest in their sales pitch and even threatened them.

An example of one of those calls:

“I had a telemarketer call, on behalf of Bell Canada offering me a free cellphone … he kept interrupting me saying, ‘You listen to me, I have this offer,’ so I asked what company he works for. I intended to ask to be placed on their ‘do not call’ list. He says, ‘Shut the f--- up’. . . I said, ‘Excuse me?’ He said, ‘You shut the f--- up,’” stated a complaint made to the CRTC last July.

“I asked to speak to a manager, and after a few moments of silence someone said, ‘Where do you live . . . I come and kill you.’”

Another complaint stated that when one person expressed their annoyance after answering the phone, the telemarketer said, “Why the f--- did you pick up the phone?”

Telemarketers often use spoof or fake numbers that don’t identify the caller.

One source familiar with the Bell case says the seriousness of the complaints was not reflected in the $1.3 million fine, considering that many of them were actionable.

The source also compared the complaints against Bell Canada to about 60 so-called actionable complaints against Calgary-based telemarketing firm Xentel DM, which was slapped with a $500,000 penalty for misusing the charity exemption in the Do-Not-Call-List rules.

Others questioned the CRTC’s approach and its reluctance to be up front with the public.

“If the penalty itself is so low then one will take the risk knowing that there is money to be made,” Liberal MP Dan McTeague said.

NDP MP Pat Martin said the CRTC is always quick to defend the “big actors” in the telecommunications industry while hammering “the small operators.”

“How do you defend this conspiracy of silence especially when the CRTC is supposed to be the watchdog of the consumers’ interest? Why defend the offender at the expense of the consumer?” Martin said.

Spokesman Denis Carmel said the CRTC wouldn’t be releasing any details on the investigation, but added there is “no direct correlation” between complaints and the decision to take action.

Bell Canada spokeswoman Jacqueline Michelis said the company would not be releasing the number of complaints.

“Neither we nor the CRTC have released any numbers. In fact, the CRTC has not shared details of the specific customer complaints with us. So we can’t comment on any hypothetical numbers you may have received. We also understand that a significant number of the complaints did not represent actual violations of the rules,” she said.

Michelis said Bell has launched its own investigation of third-party telemarketers and has worked closely with the CRTC when the complaints were brought to the company’s attention.

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“Bell has taken a number of remedial measures of its own and in cooperation with the CRTC to ensure compliance with the rules by authorized telemarketers,” she said.

However, Michelis downplayed any suggestion that the complaints were abusive or threatening.

“In virtually every case, we’ve found these complaints were the result of calls by fraudsters or others not connected to or authorized by Bell,” she said.

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