Ofcom has launched an investigation into Bulldog, following widespread customer complaints.
The communications regulator announced on Friday that it is investigating allegations that Bulldog has billed customers for services that have not been provided, and failed to maintain proper complaints-handling procedures.
The charges are related to sections 11.1 and 14.2 of the General Conditions of Entitlement which telecoms operators must adhere to.
Ofcom said it had launched the inquiry after receiving complaints from members of the public. If Bulldog fails to cooperate with the regulator to address these issues then it could ultimately be fined 10 percent of its turnover, although this would be very unusual.
In recent months, hundreds of Bulldog customers have complained that they have not been supplied a broadband or telephony service they had ordered. Many also slammed Bulldog's customer support, saying they could not get through to the company to report their problems.
One frustrated user, Steve Collis, collated and sent over 130 complaints from Bulldog customers to Ofcom in an attempt to get the regulator to take action.
ZDNet UK was also flooded with complaints from irate Bulldog subscribers, some of whom savaged the company for its poor performance.
Bulldog's failings are particularly worrying as it is one of the few operators to use local-loop unbundling to offer its own services, rather than simply reselling BT's wholesale offerings.
Bulldog has blamed BT for some of its problems, claiming that BT had been struggling to hand over control of telephone lines.
Talkback
I agree. I am a Bulldog customer and it's crap. I can't stay online for more than a minute after 6pm so surfing after work is impossible cause you have to sign on every 2 minutes which is highly disruptive. Customer Service is ok once you get through usually after a 20 minute plus wait.
I'm having big problems with Bulldog too - after they swapped their DNS servers without telling anyone, and the tech helpline just said "we are experiencing unuaually high call volumes" and cut you off - for six weeks, I decided to leave them. Now, despite being a signatory to the ofcom code of practice, they're flatly refusing to give me a MAC code to smooth the transitioon to another provider.
Bulldog are incapable of providing customer service. They took 6 days to transfer our service and we were left with no workable phone or internet connection for that time. Calls made to our home line connected to someones else's answerphone. Numerous daily calls from a mobile to their customer service department were answered by a different person every time, none of whom carried out what they promised to do. No one ever returned calls and no action was taken until they were threatened with a report to the Regulator and BBC Watchdog. They are hopeless and not to be recommended.