How to file a complaint

To file a complaint, you must contact us by telephone, in writing or at our offices. A consumer protection officer will check whether your complaint is admissible, i.e., if the subject of your complaint falls under the responsibility of the Office. If so, your complaint will be entered in the merchant’s file.

What happens if the merchant has failed to obey the law? The officer may ask you to send us certain documents related to your problem: a written assessment, an invoice, a contract, a document laying out the terms of a warranty, etc.

Exercising your rights and recourse options

You are responsible for undertaking the procedures with the merchant. Office personnel cannot intervene on your behalf to correct the situation. The Office may, however, provide you with tools to try to settle the issue by enforcing your rights as a consumer.

Based on your situation, the officer who will be processing your complaint will send you an information kit based on your problem, as well as other documents that will be useful to you as you exercise your recourse options, such as a formal demand form. The officer may also suggest you negotiate via the Parle consommation platform (available in French only), if the merchant agrees to participate, in order to reach an agreement.

What are complaints used for?

Consumer complaints are very useful as part of our monitoring activities. Our analyses of the information they contain enable us to:

• determine which business sectors or practices are problematic;
• better define our monitoring interventions with merchants;
• find out which merchants fail to obey the law and intervene with them.

This helps us maximize our effectiveness and penalize any at-fault merchants.

How does the Office intervene with merchants?

The Office receives a very high volume of complaints every year. We are unable to systematically check each and every one of them. An automated prioritization mechanism has therefore been implemented to target merchants that are to be the subject of verifications.

Based on the severity of the violations, the presence of aggravating factors, the merchant’s history in the Office’s records and the number of complaints received, the Office determines which type of intervention is required. Such interventions may involve:

• sending the merchant a reminder notice of the provisions of applicable laws and regulations;
• sending the merchant a notice of non-compliance;
• imposing an administrative fine on the merchant;
• recommending that penal procedures be brought against the merchant.

Generally speaking, the Office follows a principle of gradually escalating interventions and aims for a quick return to compliance.

Several interventions that have been carried out are subsequently made public in the section titled Get Information About a Merchant. Some interventions may also be the subject of a press release.

To find out more about the Office’s interventions with merchants, please refer to the document titled Lignes directrices des activités de surveillance (in French only).

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