Sick to death of Bulldog Broadband - and I've not even been connected yet!!

londonman81

I ordered Bulldog Broadband's Superactive package at the end of May.

I was sent an email a day later saying that I will receicve another email within a few days to inform me of when my Bulldog phone line will be installed.

Of course, I have not heard anything since then. It has been more than 3 weeks.

I phoned Bulldog Broadband half an hour ago. I held on for over 20 mins to get through. Then I spoke to the most insolent, unhelpful and quite frankly incompetent customer service rep that I have ever come across.

I asked him when I should be connmected given that I should have heard around 2 weeks ago - he said within 30 days of joining. This leaves 5 days as of today. So I asked him when I will be informed of this connection date given that only 5 days are left - he said on the same day!! How the hell can they tell me on the day that someone is going to come round and install a new phone line!!

So he went and checked and then came back and said 'oh, within 48 hours you will hear'....he didn't once use a full sentence - only a few words in a gorilla voice.

He then asked me if I had arranged with BT for the line to be installed (the Bulldog line is actually a BT one) - and I said no because that's what Bulldog are going to arrange!!

Everytime I asked hima question it was a totally dumbfounded 'YES' or 'NO' reply and a stupid question totally out of touch with what I ordered.

I'm extremely peeved with this guy - and with Bulldog Broadband - and I am sure they are just fobbing me off each time I contact them.

If I really do get a call within 48 hours informing me of my connection date I will eat my socks - because this guy didn't have the faintest idea!

I am sick to death of being taken for a ride by companies who set up supposedly 'special offers' which they don't fulfil.

It's typical 'grab their money first and sort it out later' attitude!!

I can't be the only Bulldog customer to have had this problem - they have been having some good deals on the face of it lately and many people must be signing up with them.

If this is a sign of things to come then I better cancel before I even get connected - the guy I spoke to today was sickeningly insolent!

L

Rex_Mundi

This doesn't surprise me. Bulldog have absolutely one of the worst reputations for customer servce out of all the ISPs. Have a look around the net, you can find LOADS of sites with very bad reviews for this company.

londonman81

My choice is limited because if I get a BT line direct from BT and then add on a broadband supplier I still have to subscribe to a BT phone package which costs at least £10 a month for next to no useful calls - any other OneTel etc package will cost extra on top of this useless £10 BT package. This works out to quite a lot.

Bulldog are offering £42 a month package with all calls, line rental and 8mb broadband. Not that I expect to be connected ever of course.

I'm with NTL dial-up and phone at the moment - another company that can't get its act together as they don't even have broadband in my area - and I live in London!
If they can't get all of London onto broadband in the year 2005 they may as well give up!

If Bulldog can't get their act together in the next few days with my order they will have to suffer the consequences.

Rex_Mundi

Don't say you weren't warned!!!

I'm not trying to have a go at you, it's just that if you only judge a product by the price, and then get really bad reliability and service. You can only blame yourself for not heeding the warnings, and if you look around the MANY MANY stories of other peoples bad experience with this company.

Be aware that if you have a major problem with this company, you could be left with no broadband and telephone while they try to sort it out.

Other than considering the price of an offer. We should all also consider reliability and service. In this respect Bulldog have a terrible reputation.

tomthebomb

I had roughly the same experience (minus the insolent operator) with e7even.They blamed B.T. for dragging their feet in "clearig down the line" .
I complained to ofcom who investigated and a couple of days later called back to tell me when I would be connected but offered no explanation re the 5 week delay.
Everything is now up & running smoothly so I feel that we are all just victims of B,T.'s death throes as they try to prevent anyone else making a success of something that they have been milking for ever with their exhorbitant prices.
Don't be too hard on Bulldog until they have a chance to prove themselves over a few months. Remember, you can always jump ship at the end of your contract.

Browntoa

bulldog have their own kit in the BT exchanges....their own network ....and they rent the BT pairs wholesale from them under the LLU (local loop unbundling).....but still manage to blame BT that it is not working !!!!

I cannot believe it's the BT side of the exchange that is always faulty...think it's just their ready made excuse !!

wolfman

Just to give my 5 cents worth. I was with Bulldog for 2 years, and never had a single problem. I had to deal with customer services on a couple of occasions but everything got sorted. And as far as reliablity is concered they were very good, we rarely had any downtime.

Personally I think they provide a good service, but then again all it takes is one bad experience and a customer can easily be swayed.