The federal watchdog that handles customer complaints about telecommunications and television services in Canada saw a 57 per cent spike in complaints in 2017-2018, most of them involving wireless providers. The Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services said Tuesday that it also expects to see complaints rise this year. For the first time, the federal watchdog is also investigating complaints about television. But most of what it heard in the year to September 2018 were the same issues that the CCTS has been dealing with for the past 10 years —…
Read MoreMonth: November 2018
Oil Companies Officially Ask Republicans To Kill Effort To Extend Electric Vehicle Tax Credit | Electrek
As some have launched efforts to extend the federal tax credit for electric vehicles in order to accelerate EV adoption in the US, several trade groups representing oil companies are fighting back. The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, along with several other fossil fuel trade groups, have sent a letter to US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) to kill any effort to revive the federal tax credit. Read full story here: Oil Companies Officially Ask Republicans To Kill Effort To Extend Electric Vehicle Tax Credit…
Read MoreUnion Rejects Canada Post Offer Of ‘Cooling Off’ Period With Mediation Amid Strike | CBC News
Canada Post’s largest union has rejected the mail carrier’s proposal of a “cooling off” period followed by mediation that would have brought an end to all strike activity until January. On Monday morning, the carrier proposed the two sides agree to mediation to settle their month-long strike before it cripples the key holiday shopping season. The company set a deadline of 5 p.m. ET on Monday for its offer, which came with a $1,000 bonus to each employee if there was no more strike activity up until the end of January.…
Read MoreThree Simple Words Provide Smart Cities with Precise Location | Digital Trends
The old system of addresses that cities have relied on for hundreds of years just isn’t cutting it any more. Originally intended to help with taxation and policing, the aging way of assigning street numbers to buildings isn’t precise enough for today’s — and tomorrow’s — intelligent services. “For smart cities, there’s a real need to address more specific locations,” Giles Rhys Jones, the chief marketing officer for What3Words, told Digital Trends. What3Words is a London-based startup behind a geocoding location system that’s used by Mercedes-Benz, the United Nations, and…
Read More‘You’re Gonna Lose Your Money’: Air Canada Online Glitch Leaves Retiree On Hook For Flight He Didn’t Book | CBC News
A Winnipeg retiree fought back after finding himself on the hook to pay for an Air Canada flight he didn’t book, and never took. Claude Neblett was charged more than $700 after a website malfunction took his credit card details, but didn’t issue him an airline ticket. “I was very, very angry. Very upset,” said Neblett, who lives on a fixed income after retiring from Canadian Pacific Railway more than a decade ago. “But then I calmed myself down I said, well, I will try every means to get my refund.”…
Read More‘Quebec Is An Embarrassment’: Province Urged To Do More On Cybersecurity | CTV News
MONTREAL — On Sept. 10, municipal employees in a region between Montreal and Quebec City arrived at work to discover a threatening message on their computers notifying them they were locked out of all their files. In order to regain access to its data, the regional municipality of Mekinac was told to deposit eight units of the digital currency Bitcoin into a bank account — roughly equivalent to $65,000. Mekinac’s IT department eventually negotiated the cyber extortionists down and paid $30,000 in Bitcoin, but not before the region’s servers were…
Read MoreScammed Senior Citizens Being Recruited As Drug Mules: CBSA | CBC News
Drug trafficking networks are drafting senior citizens to smuggle illicit narcotics into the country, says the Canada Border Services Agency. An intelligence advisory from the CBSA flags the issue and asks staff to be on the lookout for elderly drug importers. It suggests some of the seniors act as mules in response to financial pressure after falling victim to scams spread through phishing email messages, websites, mail and phone calls. Read full story here: Scammed Senior Citizens Being Recruited As Drug Mules: CBSA | CBC News
Read MoreMore Companies Are Chipping Their Workers Like Pets | Engadget
The trend of blundering into the void of adopting new tech, damn the consequences, full speed ahead, continues this week. The Telegraph tells us about “a number of UK legal and financial firms” are in talks with a chip company to implant their employees with RFID microchips for security purposes. “One prospective client,” The Telegraph wrote, “which cannot be named, is a major financial services firm with “hundreds of thousands of employees.” Read full story here: More Companies Are Chipping Their Workers Like Pets | Engadget
Read MoreWhy Aren’t Chip Credit Cards Stopping “Card Present” Fraud In The US? | Ars Technica
A security analysis firm called Gemini Advisory recently posted a report saying that credit card fraud is actually on the rise in the US. That’s surprising, because the US is three years out from a big chip-based card rollout. Chip-based cards were supposed to limit card fraud in the US, which was out of control compared to similar fraud in countries that already used EMV (the name of the chip card standard). Gemini Advisory now says that 60 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen in the US in…
Read MoreCanadian Crude Oil Industry In Crisis As Prices Plunge To Record Low | CTV News
The Canadian crude oil industry has declared a national emergency after prices plunged to record lows. The American benchmark price for oil is now well below $60 a barrel, having dropped $20 in the last six weeks. While that’s good news for prices at the pump, it’s causing misery for producers. The price of The price of Western Canadian Select closed just under $14 a barrel Thursday. The crisis has been blamed on a surplus of product and not enough pipeline to move it. Read full story here: Canadian Crude Oil…
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