Canadians who pay their mobile phone bills with credit cards may soon see additional fees each month, if the Canadian telecommunications regulator agrees to a proposal currently presented to them.

The telecommunications company Telus is requesting permission from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to add an additional fee of 1.5 percent to the bills of customers who pay their bills using a credit card.

If this request is approved, it will be effective starting from October.

For a customer in Alberta whose mobile phone bill is $100, the fee will raise their bill to $106.66, $100 for their base bill, plus $5 for the goods and services tax, and an additional $1.58 for the new fee, plus another eight cents in goods and services tax at an additional cost.

The company plans to provide advance notifications of the fees to its current customers starting mid-August."

The fees may be effective by October as the company is asking the regulatory body to make a decision on the proposal by September 7 and wants to start imposing the new fees from October 17, and while the CRTC must rule on the matter, the plan seems like a done deal.

Telus said in a statement: "Starting in October, a credit card payment fee of 1.5 percent will be imposed on Telus customers who choose to pay their bill by credit card."

The company also said in the statement that many other essential services already impose fees on credit card payments, including the Canada Revenue Agency, the City of Toronto, and electricity and gas providers such as Enbridge, Epcor, BC Hydro, FortisBC, and Alectra.

The company said: "These fees help us recover part of the processing costs we incur for accepting credit card payments, and the average cost will be about $2 USD for most customers," noting that it can be easily avoided by paying through a bank, via debit transaction, or other means.

Although the company did not provide an exact breakdown, Telus says most of its customers currently pay in a way that does not accumulate fees.

Telus-branded debit cards, including Koodo and Public Mobile, will not be subject to fees, and customers in Quebec are subject to these fees.

Telus took this step based on the development this summer, when credit card companies including Visa and MasterCard agreed to a settlement that will make them return millions of dollars in credit card processing fees that merchants have paid them over the years.

Critically, this settlement also grants companies permission to start imposing these fees on customers starting in October, which Telus is trying to do.

Previously, many merchants were not allowed to charge customers directly for the fees imposed on them by credit companies to process sales.

These fees can range from less than one percent of the sale to more than three percent for some premium cards.

Since every part of its business is regulated by the CRTC, Telus needs the regulator to start imposing fees that consumers can expect to start seeing from a variety of merchants soon.

On the other hand, CBC News contacted Rogers and Bell to see if they have any similar plans in the works, but representatives from the two companies did not respond to this request within one business day.

Some customers are not happy

Some wireless network customers have expressed that they are not enthusiastic about the idea.

They also see it as a bad business move, as these companies can do better than ever before. This is just another way to raise bills by paying additional fees."

For her part, Suze Morrison, a former Ontario Member of Parliament, urges the CRTC committee to reject the proposal, noting that it will disproportionately affect people who are already financially vulnerable.

She told local media, "Working-class and low-income people are really struggling to cover their expenses right now."

Adding, "The last thing anyone needs is additional fees just because of how they pay their phone bill to keep their phones connected."