They Sent My Disputed Bill to Collections
There is a protection here most people never hear about — and you switch it on by filing.
The short answer. In the CCTS's own words: if any part of your complaint is about unpaid charges, your service provider must stop trying to collect those charges until your complaint is closed. Filing is free, and it is what turns that protection on.
Last updated: September 2026
Why This Changes the Situation
The usual shape of a telecom dispute is that pressure builds while you argue. The charge stays on the account, late fees accrue, a collections agency starts calling, and eventually people pay something they do not believe they owe just to make it stop.
An open CCTS complaint interrupts that. The collection activity has to stop while the complaint runs — which means the pressure that usually decides these disputes is taken off the table, and the merits get looked at instead.
The protection follows the complaint, not the argument. Telling your provider you dispute the charge does not trigger it. Filing with the CCTS does. If you have been going round in circles for weeks, that is the single most useful thing you can do today.
What to Do, In Order
- Tell your provider in writing that you dispute the charge and what you want done. The CCTS expects you to have given them a chance first, and you need a dated record that you did.
- File with the CCTS, and make sure the unpaid charge is explicitly part of what you are complaining about — that is the trigger for the collection freeze. It is free.
- Include the credit reporting in the same complaint if the debt has already been reported. Dealing with the charge and the credit entry together is cleaner than chasing them separately.
- Tell the collection agency the complaint is open, in writing, with your CCTS reference number. Keep a copy.
- Check your credit file afterwards. An agreement to correct the reporting is not the same as it having been corrected. Verify it yourself.
What the CCTS Can Order
It is free, independent of your provider, and funded by the providers themselves. Once it accepts your complaint, the provider has twenty days to report back on whether it has been resolved. It can direct a provider to reimburse proven financial losses up to $5,000.
Reach it at 1-888-221-1687. Our full CCTS guide covers the process and the one-year deadline in detail.
Do not wait this one out. The CCTS will not act on a complaint brought more than one year after you knew, or ought to have known, the facts behind it — and a disputed charge that sits unresolved is exactly the kind that drifts past that line while you are still arguing about it.
What to Write
"I am a [provider] customer (account [number]). I dispute a charge of $[amount] dated [date], described on my bill as [exact wording]. [One or two sentences on why it is wrong.] I told [provider] I disputed it on [date] and spoke with [name/reference number], who [their response]. The amount remains unpaid because it is disputed, and [provider] has since [referred it to collections / reported it to a credit bureau] on [date]. This complaint concerns those unpaid charges. I am asking that the charge be removed, that collection activity stop while this complaint is open, and that any credit reporting arising from it be corrected."
Most people never find out this protection exists
That is the pattern we work on: rights that are real but unadvertised. We follow the CRTC proceedings that decide what providers owe you, and email once when something is actually decided.
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