Bulldog/Pipex Problem OFCOM/CISAS useless :(

Chainman

I'm going to keep this short but basically back in December last year (2007) I received a letter from Bulldog telling me I would have to change my package from PayAsYouGo Broadband to broadband if I wished to keep my phone line/number. Now I'm a Sole Trader and have a lot of businesses that know this number so I decided to take out the extra Broadband package so I could keep my number.. My Bill would have gone from £10 to about £30 but I really needed to keep the number so I figured it was worth it. I phoned them in December and confirmed I wished the PayAsYouGo to be alwasy on and accpet the new charge.

Now having problems with Bulldog before I proceeded to phone every couple of weeks to check on the status and heard a range of interesting stories from Dec right the way through to April when I finally lost the plot and sent them an email and recorded delivery letter asking what was going on.

A couple of weeks later I got my reply, a letter telling me they had cancelled my account! So I phoned and they just tell me nothing they can do as my account is closed! Anyway after another couple of weeks of trying to get to the bottom I finally contacted OFCOM who sent an email to Bulldog/Pipex (they had now changed name) asking what was happening. Five days later I contacted OFCOM again and they had heard no reply and told me to contact CISAS, so I contact CISAS and spend about 3 weeks trying to explain the problem filling in forms etc..

CISAS enter my dispure and for nearly a month nothing happens, then I'm SHOCKED to get a call from Bulldog who offer to help resolve the problem and I agree on the phone to this.. However they never actually send me anything in writting and CISAS contact me to ask if I accept their terms.. I ask to see the letter CISAS have and it states that Bulldog will credit my account and attempt to look at the problem (no resolution to save to number). I say no as I really need to keep the number, CISAS say ok and it goes to adjudicator who in turn agrees with most of my claims (they disagree that my claim for £5000 is justified saying I can only have what was offered by Bulldog/Pipex plus a bit more). Ok I'm sick of this now so I agree just resolve the issue explain what happened and lets move on..

That was back at the End of June and Bulldog/Pipex were given 4 weeks to act by CISAS.. Here I am in October with still no resolution or reason(s) for the delay CISAS seem powerless to act and are just saying "we are waiting for a response from the company"..

Couple of things extra - Bulldog/Pipex are now chasing me for payment of about £50 for the line which they say was cancelled and disconnected on the 17th of July. I'm getting regular calls aksing for payment.. I'm currently refusing as the CISAS ruling should have me in credit with Bulldog/Pipex.

The phoneline STILL works, hence me not just getting a new line.

I cannot RTD my phoneline to BT as it shows as not existing to them...

I have been unable to advertise my business now for nearly a year (no mailshots) as I'm left waiting on the outcome of this issue. Yes I could stump up the money for a new line, website changes, business cards and stationary and calling all my clients not to mention all the online sources that have my old number... But this would cost me a fair bit and I just don't have that sort of money to throw around.

Now well done for reading this *short* account of what has happened to me

My main reason for posting here is I'm now lost where can I go CISAS seem unable/unwilling to help and are unable to offer advice. I have a feeling CAB and TS would be out of their league OFCOM have washed their hands of it.

Can I take them to court claim for all the hassle and costs, is it worth it?
Contact a consumer group who maybe able to help?
Any ideas/advice?

Kelticfox

Bulldog/Pipex is now Tiscali. September 07 Tiscali bought out Pipex and all it's resellers (Nildram, Freedom2Surf, Bulldog, Toucan etc - I did work for Nildram).

Unfortunatly OfCom are the be all and end all of ISP problems. All I can suggest it ringing OfCom & CISAS and say they arent playing ball.

Chainman

OFCOM have freely admitted they can only send an email to the ISP saying that they have had a complaint from me (subscriber) with five days for them to reply. After the five day period it is just counted as a complaint unresolved and nothing more they can do.

CISAS have been unable to resolve the issue and are now stonewalling, basically telling me they will contact me when they hear something from Bulldog.Pipex/Tiscali. Bear in mind I have been waiting for some response from them since the beginning of July, only chasing up every couple of weeks for some update which is "we are waiting on a response".

Is it not possible to take Bulldog/Pipex/Tiscali to court over this issue then is there nowhere else I can turn?

Chainman

I now have Trading Standards involved.. Seems likely I will now have to stump up for court proceedings.. Things might get messy very soon..

CISAS promised to update me this afternoon.. No call again.. Frankly if it wasn't real it would be a damn good joke.

Andy_Spoo_2

Your not the only one who's having problems with Bulldog/Pipex.

I've been with bulldog for years and have never had a problem. Since Pipex have taken over, they've turned into a pile of crap. Read the email that I've sent them below. Take into account that I've just received another answering machine message to say my phone line should now be working. Guess what, it's still the same. As you will gather from the email that I'm going to take them to the small claims court. By the way, they informed me that the engineers are part of AT&T, not Tiscali.

"My telephone has been faulty for over a week. I have made 5 different phone calls to your company without a resolution.

I have been cut off once and lied to twice.

1. I was told notes had been left on the system to say that someone from your company had phoned and spoken to someone here and confirmed that the phone line was working. A complete lie. The only contact I had, or anyone from this house hold had, was when someone had phone and left a message on my mobile phone to say the fault had been resolved, which it hadn't.

2. A few minutes ago I was told that the engineers were still working on the fault. But obviously they were not, because of the previous call/contact above. Obviously, another engineers call has been raised, information which I eventually managed to get out of your call centre representative.

3. During the call prior to the above, I was cut off when left on hold.

4. When making the initial call I was told that the fault was due to me not paying the bill, which I had as it's on a constant direct debit. I was then told to ring the accounts department. Why the f*ck couldn't your call centre check the account information when I phoned. How useless and pathetic. I did call them and was told that all payments were upto date, which I already knew. I then had to phone back the technical line again and explain the situation.

5. I've repeated the fault description to all five people, over and over again. Can't your Indian representatives read the f*cking notes on the system

6. What's the point of me entering my phone number onto your automated system and then being asked by your representative what my phone number is? I've done this 5 times, so that's 10 times I've had to give my number.

7. I never had a problem when Bulldog ran my phone/adsl. Since Pipex has taken over, it's become a pile of !!!!!!.

8. I'm claiming for compensation. I intended to contact OFCOM, but they're still the toothless, useless wonder they always were, so if the compensation is not forthcoming within the next few days, or the compensation is pathetic, I intend to take you to the small claims court.

9. I hereby give you 14 days notice, as required by law, that I, Mr. Andrew parry, of ***************, *************, ************** UK, intend to contact the small claims court and have a service issued against your company (defendant), requesting compensation to be made to the claimant with respect to loss of use of the telephone line, mobile phone charges incurred, stress caused and my personal hourly rate spent contacting your call centre.

Chainman

Hope you get somewhere.. At least they talk to you I am only able to talk to someone in Credit Control as Customer Services refuse to do anything as my account is closed.

I'm waiting until Friday then I'm going to seek legal advice as I suspect I shall be claiming a fair amount (maybe more than Small Claims) as it's effected my business and been ongoing for coming up to a year soon.

It wouldn't be so bad if there was someone you can actually speak to who is not reading from a script and watching a flashing board with all the calls on hold..

Andy_Spoo_2

Well, I was told today by Pipex that the fault I have has occurred to 10,000 Bulldog customers, where the system thinks we haven't paid our bills, but we all have.

Apparently I will get another phone call on Monday to tell me again that my line has been reactivated. That'll be the third time then.

Once this has been resolved I'm going to change providers. Voting with your feet is always best!

Andy_Spoo_2

I think you can keep your existing phone number if you change provider. I seem to remember doing this when I change to Bulldog.

Chainman

Yes you should be able to port your number back (or to) BT best bet is to wait until the line is again working and call BT and ask for Customer Options team and explain you wish to Port your number across.

Good luck.. I had a call from someone at CISAS Friday telling me that Tiscali are now dealing with my complaint/problems and they wanted to know what the had not done yet.. I had to say *everything* lol.. And to top it off got another call from Pipex this morning chassing me for money I don't owe them..

johng4060

Hello everyone,
If you do not want stress, headaches, worry, frustration etc..then keep well away from Pipex/Tiscali.

I had been with them for a number of years then accepted a better deal from TalkTalk.
The changeover went as planned on the 21/Feb/2008 and TalkTalk assured me that they had okayed everything with Pipex..Then the trouble started,i bean to receive further bills from Pipex saying they would disconnect my broadband and telephone service if i did not re-instate my direct debit.
I was asked to contact customer service's to (what a joke i would have got more sense out of dead parrott ) "resolve this issue".
I did call them to explain the situation that my account was closed so how could they disconnect me etc etc..i was no longer receiving any service from them.
I still kept getting regular telephone calls and letters from them demanding further payments,and i had many conversations with them explaining over, and over, that
i owed them nothing.
On the 28 of August 2008 i managed to get an assurance from three of their departments,Cancellations/Billing and customer care,that "yes the account is closed and finalised ,you do not owe anything" they even refunded me £4.82.
A couple of weeks later i received another bill for £56 and a threat that they would dissconnect me and hand it over to a credit collection agency.
Again i spoke to customer services and was advised to disregard the letter every thing has been sorted...another two weeks i was contacted by the credit agency saying they would initiate court proccedings if i did not pay the £56.
My last contact with Pipex i sent a registered letter asking for detailed information as to how they managed to come up with that sum after they had already accepted that the account was closed and i owed nothing,i did receive a reply 15 Nov yesterday saying the account is closed and you owe £56..no explanation..but if i called customer care they would help...NO WAY.
I have now sought the help of Trading Standards and i am hoping they will bring this awfull episode to a conclusion.
My advice?.... sign up with Pipex if you want but make sure you have a dead parrott....you will get more sense out of it

Redandwhitestokie

we had problems with them now for 2 weeks first broadband went off now phone line is dead
got it touch with ofcom nothing
CISAS nothing
trading standards help quite a lot they got in touch with bulldog on our behalf we are using our mobile phones as well to ring bulldog
so now as of Wednesday next week we are moving to bt total broadband
Never Go To Bulldog/Pipex
no engineer as contact us or either came out to find the the fault

the problem with the phone people can ring us up but it's not ringing here
and the phone is dead our end

So Bulldog and Pipex are Rubbish