Sarah Brooks and Nick Williams just bought a home in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood and were excited for a fresh start.
There was just one problem: Rogers wouldn’t let them go.
With less than two weeks left on the lease at her downtown condo, Brooks thought it might take a day to cancel her $140 monthly Internet service.
The couple did not expect the last item on their to-do list would involve hours on hold, dropped calls and automated system disconnections for four days — and counting.
“I don’t even know how many chat specialists I’ve spoken to,” says Brooks, a project manager at a tech company. “I’ve lost count.”
Two separate visits to Rogers’ storefronts didn’t help. A staffer told her the company requires that customers cancel Internet only by phone, which a spokesperson later confirmed to the Star is industry protocol.
When Brooks called the company again last Monday, “I got a message saying there’s too big of a line and that they aren’t able to help so call back another time” she says. “You can’t even wait on hold, which is crazy.”
Breaking up with Rogers, Brooks half-jokes, has dominated her conversations with family and friends.
“Can anyone else understand my pain?”
The answer is a resounding yes.
A 65% surge in cancellation complaints nationwide
The couple’s ordeal actually exposes a growing problem.
While Canadian telecom consumers have a legal right to cancel their service at any time, service providers routinely funnel them through call centres that increasingly block the exit.
According to the Star’s analysis of data collected and verified by the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS), accepted consumer complaints citing an inability to cancel telecom services rose 64.9 per cent between 2022 and 2025.
Rogers/Shaw generated the largest single share of these grievances, while complaints against Telus surged nearly 300 per cent and complaints against Bell rose by 50 per cent.
“Why are there so many barriers in place?” asks Williams, a public relations director. “It shouldn’t be this way.”
“They throw up barriers because people do give up,” says Matt Hatfield, executive director of OpenMedia, a consumer advocacy group.
The industry, of course, has a different take.
In late 2024, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) launched a public consultation on the issue. The proceeding drew nearly 100 written interventions from individual Canadians, accessibility groups, public interest advocates and telecom service providers.
Things got heated.
In a written submission, the Canadian Telecommunications Association characterized the industry’s practice of funnelling cancellation requests to phone lines as a ”consumer safeguard.”
“Live touchpoints,” Telus’s submission noted, “play a crucial role in ensuring security, preventing fraud and delivering a positive customer experience.”
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) pushed back.
These “safeguards,” PIAC told the regulator, “mask what these processes really do: they delay, turn off and/or redirect consumers away from making the changes they want and back toward their ‘loyalty’ departments to entice them to stay.”
If only she could reach a human, Brooks would have happily fielded an offer, especially after learning through this process that Williams was paying half as much for Internet with another provider that picked up the phone and cancelled his condo’s service in a single 20-minute call.
Williams’ provider was Virgin Plus, which is owned by Bell. As of January 2026, Bell stopped offering Virgin Plus Home Internet to new customers in Ontario, but agreed to honour pricing on Williams’ new Internet plan for the house in the Junction, which will cost about $65 monthly.
CRTC cracks down on phone queue traps
Last April, the CRTC announced it would force an end to the industry’s phone queue trap, issuing Telecom Regulatory Policy 2026-78.
Service providers have until April 26, 2027 to give consumers other ways to modify or cancel their Internet and wireless services that don’t involve speaking with a customer service agent on the phone or risk an administrative monetary penalty of up to $10 million for a first offence.
The CRTC did not mandate a “click to cancel” option but noted that customer service agents must still be available for those who need them.
Rogers declined to provide details on how it’s preparing for that deadline.
“We’re working towards it,” spokesperson Christina Salituro told the Star in an email.
Salituro apologized for Brooks’ “frustrating experience” adding: “ We continue to invest in improving the customer experience through new digital tools, technology enhancements and service improvements designed to make it easier for customers to get the support they need.”
A day after I reached out to Rogers on Brooks’ behalf, the company contacted her directly, confirming her internet service has been officially cancelled.
Rogers, however, would not explain why Brooks and a growing number of Canadians report difficulties cancelling services with the company.
“For context,” Salituro wrote, “issues relating to cancellation services made up less than 3 per cent of overall issues reported to CCTS in 2024/25.”
CCTS confirmed the growth rate of “unable to cancel” complaints was “1.05 times the growth rate of overall complaints, or about 4.9 per cent higher.”
Staff cuts meet AI loops
While Rogers initially attributed longer customer service wait times to a variety of circumstances, such as wildfires and vandalism to its fibre-optic cables, the spike in complaints coincides with a wave of front-line job cuts.
Over the last two years, major telecom service providers have slashed thousands of positions across Canada and internationally, citing network automation and operational efficiencies.
Salituro declined to share the total number of customer service jobs Rogers eliminated in the past year, but noted that digital tools, including “enhanced internal tools with AI,” are making it easier for customers to get support.
Hatfield of OpenMedia remains skeptical.
“What we’re hearing from our base is that things have gotten much, much worse,” he says, noting consumers are getting stuck in loops with AI systems that don’t understand them.
“I don’t think the full impact of AI and the customer care cutbacks have appeared in full in the numbers yet,” Hatfield says. “The next year of CCTS reports are going to be brutal.”
How to bypass the hold music
In the meantime, telecom customers who are trapped in cancellation limbo have one immediate workaround: switching providers and asking their new carrier to do the heavy lifting.
Since 2011, CRTC rules allow consumers to request that their new service provider process the cancellation of their existing service on their behalf, avoiding customer service hold lines altogether.
“Good to know for next time,” Williams says. “Others should be aware this is an option.”
