Bulldog Broadband is bull*** broadband (Bulldog Broadband)

Member Name: eclipsehater

Product:	Bulldog Broadband
Date:	15/05/06 (1023 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Contemplating suicide? Sign up with these and they'll finish you off a LOT quicker

Disadvantages: Bad customer support, bad speeds, zillions of faults, dodgy billing, card scams, you name it ....

Well, where do we start with this fairy story? No let's rephrase that to a horror story beyond all imagination. Forget nightmare on elm street, try revenge of the living bulldog line eating zombies, well, bulldog make it up as they go along so why can't I?

I subscribed (got my arm bent behind my back last June) to BD (Bulldog) after finishing with BT after what can be described as disgraceful CS (customer service) from their Dublin call-centre, evidently overrun with munchkin oompalumpah's on great treadmills , generating power for the BT Broadband. (Or should that be narrow?).

For me, the golden egg was the phrase 'FREE', as I found out, there's no such thing as a free lunch without a price, and bulldog’s lunch is a price that makes tea at the Ritz look like an afternoon in your local coffee shop. I kid you not.

We started off by being offered a 'free line' and 'free connection' all for 'JUST a pound', the smooth-talking student at the end of the line was contacting people I think knowing that people has been off BT and they were snaffling the business, anyway, this company calls itself the listening company, they ring you on an 0845 number, which if you ring it back, you get a recorded message and no point of contact, what a corny name. Anyhow, I got sold on the 'just a pound' pledge, BUT at the time I didn't have a debit card, 'no problem' says the weekend student, you can do this by getting a family member to pay, so I did, I asked about DD (Direct Debit) billing, not a problem Sir, it'll all be set-up, WONDERFUL, I say, can't wait ... well, in fact I do wait, June goes by, no contact, July comes and goes, me sitting here no BBand, August comes, and mid-August a small 'blink and you miss it' email from Bulldog, you're 'x' number of weeks from connection, I'm sitting here thinking I was 'x' number of weeks away in bloody June, so what's the difference? As Paul Daniels would say, 'not a lot'.

Anyhow the service went 'live' of a fashion 1st week September, all good and well I hear you cry, well, on day one the speed was a blistering 7.2 Mb download, wow, super, great, then it was downhill ever since, we're now at a miserly 4 Mb or so my Router tells me and sometimes I think that tells me lies. So the advert of 'UP TO 8MB BROADBAND' and now 'UP TO 16MB BROADBAND' doesn't quite ring true in my eyes, if on an 8mb you're getting 4, that means mathematically you'll get less than 8 on their 16mb tariff. What tripe.

Things were ok until around mid October (still no billing despite assurances it was monthly billing), then the system started playing up, disconnecting 15 times a day. I swear there was a sick linesman sitting in the exchange swapping wires over just for the sheer hell of it, it was driving me nuts, ever been on eBay trying to bid and then in the dying seconds 'connection reset' , angry? The computer nearly got launched into orbit along with the damn modem.

So, on to BD CS for a merry-go-round of bulls*** from people who purport to know what they're talking about, but who have to read the user manual on how to fill a kettle in the works canteen, when they run out of fob-me-off excuses on the crib sheets sitting in front of them, they're like pilchards in a can, well stuffed.

Nearly 3 months of a right old game replacing everything from filters, to a new router (at my expense) I threw the cheap-tack crap I got sent in the bin. November came, it's your line Mr.X, it's your cable Mr.X, this cretin I dealt with even got me to UNSCREW the BT Master socket to 'check the connection' like I’d know what to look for like Spock on the bridge of the sodding enterprise, although beaming me up at that point to the BD Call centre would have been preferable as I'd have strangled the bastard with the Ethernet cable.

So, this went on, and on and on, each time I raised a fault call, a pleasant girlie rang me back and explained in details what to do, so I did, no joy, so I rang back, eventually they upgraded the fault to someone higher of a little (but not much ) more intelligence than the pleb before, they went through the same crap, it's now December (still no bill, and that's no bull) and eventually the CS guys and gals concede, yes, there must be a fault, so we'll send an engineer, hooray,(BT Onstream - as it's all farmed out now), the guy comes round one morning, can see I’m visibly pissed off with the whole shebang and assures me I ain't the only one, and I certainly won't be the last as far as BD's concerned. The guy sticks his yellow box of tricks in my socket and it lights the red warning light up like a road full on maniacal traffic lights all going on strike at once, RED,RED,RED,RED,RED,RED,RED, and now I'm seeing RED as that psychopathic mist descends and I contemplate revenge.

The guy goes to box at the end of the road, and yep, there's a fault all right, the lines was crossing with someone else’s, so no wonder when I picked up my phone I could hear people talking in the background! 1 hour passes, he comes back after being to the other box at the far end of the road, plug everything in, fire it all up, and no drop-outs. A quick phone call to Onstream 3 months prior would have solved all this stressful shit I had to put up with.

So that's that, I hear you say, no quite, remember that I hadn't been sent a bill? Well I do use the phone a lot for mobile and international calls, so I expected it to be big, about 75 quid a month ex VAT. I sent 4 emails and many phone calls to find out where the billing is, then suddenly I get a call from my father (whose card I used with authority) he'd be whumped for 630.00 by BD Billing in February 2006, talk about shocked, and I was, as it was now me who owed him. To say that I was angry was an understatement, what takes a company 7 months to set billing up? Useless and idiotic. Total lack of customer service and they really don't know what they're talking about (might explain why they've only got 80,000 sign ups and 2 months ago nearly went under ...). I'll add at this point if you even dare try to speak to a 'supervisor' or 'manager' they have a special 'dump the call' button and put you hold for 20 minutes to get you to ring off, and if you're STILL there (like I did one day) they say they're busy and can't come to the phone, you've got to laugh. Even the management credo and culture at BD is astounding. Customer service, what customer service???

Around October time there was a scam going around bulldog with peoples credit cards being skimmed, if you rang billing you got a recorded message, so it must have been bad and widespread, and I DO know that at weekends and out of hours, there's every change you get connected to the Bombay call centre with an idiot and a head set with even LESS intelligence, I actually got laughed at by this girl down the phone and her friend, but what do you expect when the company pay 5 rupees an hour for some sweat-shop call centre?

After much hand-wringing, I got a response out of Bulldog, they sent me a letter ADMITTING the error in billing (the bank says this is as close to fraud as it gets, and in my mind it IS fraud, therefore Bulldog DEFRAUD CARDS IT IS NOT AUTHORISED TO TAKE MONEY FROM). I wanted at least a 2 month discount and an apology from them to my father, I'm still awaiting a reply, but I’m not doing a David Blaine (holding my breath). They said they'd refund so long as I pay the money back to them over 6 months (for 7 months billing? oh yeah?).

No, bollocks I thought, we do this my way, so I await their response, not that I'll ever get one, I've just done another letter this week to their legal department advising them of court recovery action.

As noted on other forums, always send letters by recorded delivery so you have a signature, NEVER EVER EMAIL THEM, NEVER EVER RING THEM, their culture is one of 'deny all liability, admit nothing, say nothing, and DO nothing'.

Scamming a 70 year old pensioner out of his monthly pension credit from his account, believe me, that's not low, that's tantamount to mugging, and Bulldog I assure you all, will pay very dearly for their horrendous and deliberate mis-contrived bad customer service and THEFT, and I speak openly, as the bank has admitted as much, and then they sent me a letter to admit they were wrong.

If you are EVER tempted to sign up with BULLDOG broadband for anything other than a free pack of rubber bands, DON'T, you'll wish to the god of copper cable you never bothered.

I can't even give them 0/10 as its way too high. I wait in baited breath at a response from them and I’ll amend this review only when I get what I want and nothing less.

Thieves, liars, fraudsters, and a corrupt service provider who wouldn't know what the phrase customer service was if it got up and smashed it in the face with a lump hammer. Avoid Bulldog at all costs, if I had a tardis, I’d got back to June 2005 and tell the student at the end of the phone to give up quietly and get a 5.00 an hour job serving at McDonalds, coke with that Sir?????

IF YOU DEAL WITH BULLDOG AND HAVE AN ACTIVE ACCOUNT - READ

RULE OF THUMB – NEVER EVER TRUST BULLDOG WITH ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION, NEVER GIVE CARD DETAILS OVER THE PHONE, AND ALWAYS PAY BY DIRECT DEBIT, IF THEY HAVE YOUR CREDIT CARD DETAILS ON FILE THIS IS THEIR BACK-UP PLAN IF YOU LEAVE AND CANCEL THE DD’S - SO GET THE CARD COMPANY OR BANK TO CHANGE THE NUMBER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE OR YOU’LL REGRET NOT DOING IT.

I AM INFORMED THAT LEGALLY AFTER 3 MONTHS THEY HAVE TO DELETE CARD DATA (ACCORDING TO THE BANK) THEY EVIDENTLY DO NOT DO THIS AND NEED A BACKUP PLAN TO SCAM YOU IF YOU TRY AND BOLT AFTER SHUTTING A DIRECT DEBIT DOWN, SO PLAY THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME AND STAY ONE STEP AHEAD, ALWAYS.

The lies started on day 1 minute 1 right back to June, when I informed the guy at the listening company that this would only be a single pound deduction from the card, he PROMISED me that this was the case and assured me everything would be ok, so lies, lies, lies and more damn lies from start, to soon, the eventual finish. Anyone contemplating Bulldog as their next ISP needs an immediate frontal lobe lobotomy.

Promise the earth and don't deliver? That's Bulldog.

And lastly folks, in March, they tried to take money from my father’s account AGAIN, but he had sense to get the bank to change the physical card number. It made me physical too, physically sick. What a way to treat customers, nothing more than cannon fodder to Bulldog, just like the government they bury bad news. Appalling. I wish i'd never left BT, they may have been bad, but nowhere near as bad as this lot.

If anyone has been through the same and is looking to take legal action, please get in touch. I used to post on the

http://www.my-bulldog-hell.co.uk

forums, but I got some flak from thr admins for my vociferous comments about this diabolical company, so i'll leave my ranting on dooyoo where they get more constructive and helpful critique. I am of the opinion that anything in life is isn't done for free, so it seems odd that the my-bulldog-hell forums have a 'hot line' to Bulldog, i can't imagine for one minute that there's not some under the table agreement here but i'll leave it open to the opinion of the reader. Bulldog like to bury bad news and quickly so this is a good way of doing it, nail the problem before it becomes a problem if you see where I am coming from. In the same way NTL bought out the website NTHellworld the other year, you have to ask the question WHY?

Avoid posting on my-bulldog-hell unless the postings are nice and to the benefit of Bulldog. Caveat Emptor.

Summary: The most horrific excuse for an internet service provider EVER concieved.