After reading about other people's problems with Bulldog Broadband, I'd thought I'd let you know about the issues I've been having.
For those who don't know, Bulldog (a Cable and Wireless company) recently launched an 8Mbps broadband service to the majority of its LLU exchanges. I was planning on signing up to this deal having found out that the local Bromley exchange was supporting this (currently revolutionary) DSL speed.
Anyway, the story goes that I was going to wait for a decent introductory offer to come up when the line speed was offered at (just?) 4Mbps and signed up to a special deal that happened to be going on in the local shopping centre. It meant that I could get the service at a reduced rate for six months, pay just £1 for connection and get a free wireless router. The only problem was that the sales rep, being a third party agent on commission, didn't process my order correctly and the fun began.
The main issue customers have been having is the difficulty to get through to support. Phone the sales line and you'll be through to a human within seconds. Not so for the other 0800 number. I am not exaggerating when I say that the average length of time I have been on hold for is over 20 minutes. The quickest I think was about 12 minutes, and longest over 35. 35 minutes? I just got into the habit of leaving the phone on speakerphone (lucky I have that facility at home and work otherwise I might have done my neck some damage), going off to the loo or getting a coffee, and coming back in time to speak to one of their support robots. That is if you get to join the queue at all, of which you have no chance weekdays between about 11am and 2pm.
E-mail support is just as bad. I received an e-mail after the original order was put through incorrectly telling me that my free modem was on the way. I replied and said that this was the wrong product and that the order had been cancelled anyway. I received a reply to my reply over two weeks later telling me they had no record of the order or something. I can understand the frustration that many customers have been getting in and can appreciate why Bulldog have, under pressure, removed their 'best consumer ISP' banner.
After being on hold in one particular week for over four hours, trying to sort out the issue with my order, I eventually spoke to a supervisor (called Hope, of all names) and about a week later things were sorted. Only a couple of issues still remain, such as the line dropping off every-so-often and my wireless modem not turning up yet. But I live in hope!
In case you're interested, the supposed 8Mbps is being reported by my router as 5184Kbps downstream and 576Kbps upstream. Don't think I can complain about that upload speed - it's faster than most entry-level broadband download speeds, but the download speed has decreased since I reported problems with the line…
August 16th, 2005 at 21:56
I have found a good site on which to post Bulldog-related issues: http://www.my-bulldog-hell.co.uk/
February 10th, 2006 at 15:00
If you want to get through to anyone and really wanna annoy and get them to respond then mail:
AllUsers@bulldocommunications.com
as you can imagine… you will mail the whole company you can also add @bulldogdsl.com @bulldogbroadband.com @bulldogbusiness.com @bulldoglounge.com @bddsl.net all these are valid e-mails and will get to them.
Thease are some other addresses you might be interested, just add the @ whatever from the above list after the following:
BillingOperations, CallBackBilling, CallCentrestaff, CSTeamleaders, CusServGroup, CustomerServiceQuality, residentialsupport
That’s about it… good luck and feel free to share this information with everyone specially the e-mail addresses.
Let me know if this helps. Could post some phone numbers but not sure they would help more then the e-mails.