Network management Toolkit

Story: Bulldog users bite back over poor service

Posted by: kh (Thursday 6 April 2006, 1:43 AM)

i now believe they ARE conmen...

i cancelled my bulldog contract in June of 2005. I paid the obligatory 2 months' worth of cancellation fees over a 2 month period, and so on. All was clear. I received a letter or two to confirm the cancellation.

Then I continued to be billed until November. Worse, THEY CONTINUED TO TAKE FUNDS FROM MY BANK ACCOUNT. They did not do so on a standing order, because I had cancelled my standing order after the first time it happened. HSBC informed me that whoever was withdrawing cash from my account was doing so with an illegal debit transaction.

I didn't notice until November that this was happening because I was away and not regularly checking my bank transactions.

HSBC advised me to cancel my card and scramble my account details. I did. It stopped. It is now April of 2006 and I am still waiting for Bulldog Customer Disservice to stop sending me regular bills. Worse, I am still waiting for the refund three separate someones at their customer services department have, on three separate occasions insisted I was due. "It will be back in your account within 2 weeks sir" ... every time, nothing. Just another bill for services I haven't received for nearly a year.

My repeated emails received no response. Ever. Until one day...Suddenly I start getting a response, only it is not from the usual Bulldog address.

They claimed to be from the Bulldog Complaints Department. It's a different mail server address. There was a telephone number to call. Finally getting through to the complaints department, (about 40 minutes' wait each time I tried--FROM OVERSEAS) they apologized and then misquoted the outstanding amount owed to me... They then asked for my bank details so that they could send me the funds. ... I refused to give them my bank details, which the official customer services (official meaning, the number associated with my bill and the website) department had already received 3 times. I demanded they mail a cheque. I was promised a cheque in the mail. Guess what. Weeks later, no cheque.

Suddenly, however, the phone line associated with the address I had told them to send my cheque to (not my address) is being bombarded with phonecalls by the most oddball people claiming to need information about me. ... My name is not in any way associated with that phone number, but the calls keep coming. They appear to be local (I am overseas presently) callers asking for personal information for such innocuous reasons as needing it in order to send me invitations to sporting and social activities that I am in no way associated with...but which are common in the mainstream.

The people who do live at this address are VERY CONCERNED --and now I am too-- that BULLDOG BROADBAND HARBOURS A CRIME RING OPERATING WITHIN THE RANKS OF ITS CUSTOMER SERVICES DEPARTMENT. Either that, or Bulldog broadband is just a massive phishing front.

I have been tracing the calls, and I have already been in contact with scotland yard fraud squad and the local police on the matter. I just felt I should let everyone else know of the trouble I've had...