A UK businessman who suffered weeks of disruption after agreeing to sign up for a broadband account with Bulldog is taking the company to court.
The case is being brought by Phillip Oppenheim, managing director of Cubana, a London bar and restaurant.
Oppenheim is seeking damages from Bulldog for losses his business suffered through the lack of a broadband connection. He also hopes to force its managing director into the witness box to answer charges that Bulldog kept advertising its service and signing up new customers even though it knew it was struggling to deliver new connections.
The case will be heard at West London county court on 10 March.
Oppenheim told ZDNet UK that he had agreed to move to Bulldog in July 2005. A couple of days afterwards, he heard reports that Bulldog customers were suffering problems and tried to cancel the installation. He claims that Bulldog's sales team refused to allow this.
"They said I had to speak to customer services. But even though I protested, a week later I was transferred to Bulldog," said Oppenheim.
Once he became a Bulldog customer, Oppenheim says he was unable to get an Internet connection, and it took two weeks before he was back on a BT connection, and another two weeks before he was returned to his previous ISP.
"We were effectively off broadband for a month. It took three or four times as long to do the work," said Oppenheim.
Oppenheim then attempted to win compensation from Bulldog, arguing that the company should have allowed him to cancel his contract before he was transferred to their network. After failing to get his concerns addressed, he contacted Ofcom — at which point he says Bulldog offered him £45 compensation. After attempting to get Bulldog to join in an arbitration process with CISAS, the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme, he eventually initiated court proceedings.
Oppenheim has asked the court to force Emanuele Angelidis, Bulldog's chief executive, and the salesperson who sold him the service to both give evidence in the case. He has also asked for internal documents to be brought to court. A decision on this is expected within a couple of weeks.
Oppenheim says that he hopes to prove Bulldog knew that it was suffering problems with its service when it signed him up.
A Bulldog spokeswoman said on Thursday afternoon that the only issue which is in dispute before the Court will be the level of compensation to which Mr Oppenheim is entitled.
"It is Bulldog's policy to deal with claims by negotiation where all parties are being reasonable. Mr Oppenheim's claim arose out of particular facts in July 2005. We have since fully addressed these issues. Bulldog is committed to providing a good service to all its customers. Each customer claim is looked at on its individual merits," she said.
ZDNet UK reported in early July 2005 that Bulldog customers were complaining of problems. Since then, we have received several hundred complaints from users. Oppenheim plans to use some of these Talkbacks as further proof of the extent of Bulldog's problems.
Talkback
I have applied for the bulldog service in January 2006. I was promised that my line will be moved to the Bulldog service at the end of Feb 06.
Since Feb 06 I have been without a phone line, and Bulldog hasn’t done anything to rectify this problem.
I have requested to cancel this service, but was not allowed to do so, as I had to give them 30 days notice????
Now I'm waiting for BT to install a new line and number so I can get broadband once again.
If I should receive a bill for any of their non existent service, I will take them to court!!!
I have been more lucky. I managed to cancel in time back in 2004. Bulldog is a nightmare of a company. It's continuing existence is a statement of the inefficiency of agencies like ofcom and a guilty lack of reporting from the specialised and generalist press
I ordered Bulldog 8mb in March 2005, and was charged £1 as part of their promotion. They duly took the money, but I did not hear a word from them. I then received a letter in September 2005 to say that they were going to connect me! 7 Months!!! On the day of connection, someone contacted me from Bulldog to say that they had cancelled the connection as they received a fax from BT telling them not to. As this was not the case I asked them to go ahead with the connection and they then stated that I would have to reorder the package through the sales team! Anyways once I was up and running with Bulldog I encountered so may problems, dropping connection every two minutes etc. This then cleared after numerous complaints, but now find that in the middle of the night the phone is disconnected for hours at a time! Shall be cancelling this service as soon as I can...
For any business, if they consider the internet important, a second ADSL connection would be worth having. This businessman would have avoided his troubles if he had taken Bulldog on a second phone line and thus not been without service. He gets no sympathy from me - he has learned the hard way - and if he had no advice, has only himself to blame.
Does everyone 'depend' on a single service and have no thought of 'backup' ? Incidentally, while I am not a customer of Bulldog at present, one of my clients is, and I'll be switching my *second* line to Bulldog soon!
I am amazed that Bulldog keep getting this wrong. I had a Virgin net service on 1mbps at home, and was told by Virgin that my line would not support a higher speed.
I contacted bulldog and asked them if they could provide a faster speed on my current line, they said it was possible, but they could guarantee a speed in the region of 4-8mbps if I had a new line installed.
Of course I followed this advice, and have had a constant level of issues. The new line is too noisy for use as a telephone line (an issue which bulldog engineers alerted me to and then did nothing about!) and the broadband connection speed NEVER is above 2.5mbps.
When I speak to Bulldog, they just do not want to know. They assure me that they are "looking into things" but the only resolution I have had so far was to have a 2mbps line cap placed on my line which totally removed the ability to connect to the web at over 1mbps, or to use the phone. I think that they may have actually removed the phone service at this time by mistake from something one engineer said.
When I ask them why I was told over several calls that the lines and had been tested prior to install and that I was guaranteed a min 4 mbps by using the LLU option, they claim that this is possible, but other factors are influencing the line (e.g. my internal wiring).
I use the bulldog line purely for internet now. The line is installed 50cm from the computer. Only the router is plugged in (Linksys WAG354G) using high quality (short) modem cables with gold plated adapters.
I haev tried to use the BT test socked, but there is no noticeable difference in speed or quality.
I find that this is still more poor service from bulldog, and that I spend more time on the phone to the, or looking up other support websites, than actually using my connection!
To add insult to injury, I am the Head of ICT and the CIO for a large NHS Trust who is looking to Bulldog to provide a complete home solution for our home workers and remote sites. I will be speaking to our account manager at Bulldog and threaten to pull the whole contract and pass it to BT instead - we are still in trial phase - but should all customers not receive the same level of service?
I am lucky in that i have a very large stick (possible worth up to £200K in the first year) to hit Bulldog over the head with, but having to use this would be a last resort.
It is a shame that a large British company cannot support the British public in a decent manner. There have now been too many instances of Bulldog complaints being posted to various forums, and it is about time the regulator sat up and took notice.
All regulatory bodies have an interest to be proactive on behalf of the consumer, so really Bulldog should be in the dock with them by now.
At this time I wish my name to be withheld, due to mentioning the area in which I work, but this could change over time.
Regards
I am director of a fashion company Fashion-Enter Ltd. In April 06 we opened a top end boutique 'Enter' at Centrale Shopping Centre in Croydon.
After being "promised" by a Bulldog representative that we would receive prompt service we signed up with Bulldog - we needed a phone line urgently as we had to have the credit card machine for sales... obviously!
It took almost two months for the phone line to be installed. How long is that for a small business to wait for a credit card to be installed? We had countless complaints, extensive lost revenue affecting profit margins and the Managers commission was greatly diminished; the damage to our reputation was horrendous.
We have lodged a formal complaint with the official regulators but why was Bulldog granted the licence if they just could not deliver the service? Regulatory bodies should apply stringent rules when approving telecommunication companies.
Jennifer Holloway
Director
Fashion Enter Ltd
www.fashioncapital.co.uk
www.fashion-enter.com
Enter - the boutique that's unique
Unit 2 Centrale Shopping Centrer
Croydon
0203 132 2433
info@fashion-enter.com
I also have had problems with bulldog...
On the 22nd January, my mother placed an order for a ADSL modem costing £20, which the company took out of my mothers account 2days later.
Up until this day we still have not received this Modem. One of the customer services representative had informed us while ordering, that this would take 2-3 days to arrive. On the third day we called to find out why it had not yet arrived, we was then told that it would arrive on the third or forth day in which, she also said that it normally takes 2-3 days. After waiting 5 days we called again and another person told us that it would take 3-5 days to arrive, in which it never did.
After a long process of about 23 calls to Bulldog and having to re - order the item again, we still have not received anything again.
This has been a very frustrating situation, I am very appalled with this company's lack of efficiency. This is also one of the worst broadband companies I've come across and I will definitely not be recommending them to any one.