Worst company on the planet!!! Do not do business with them, EVER!! Service is the worst, internet goes in and out, which in our case means phones as well with our VOIP system. Don't bother calling to complain about it - If and when you talk to a real person, it will be your fault for not buying enough service for your office. I guess for only $370 a month internet service we shouldn't expect to run an office with two people in it. Also, beware of the contract. You can never cancel it! It will automatically renew. Supposedly you can send a certified letter somewhere (location is a secret - not located on any communication from this company) 90 days in advance of the end of your contract. If you miss that, you get an automatic new contract you are stuck with. Saying you are not renewing when they call to try to talk you into it, does not trigger the sales rep to tell you that you need to cancel in writing - not even when you tell them that 6 or 7 times. In conclusion, just know, WORST INTERNET SERVICE, WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE, AND A SCAM!!! read more

I have some experience with getting out of Birch's scam, so please read the rest of this review if you are being hit with their scam and are scared/don't know what to do. First, some background. Birch contacted us masquerading as AT&T and asked us if we wanted to lower our business phone bill. One time, we said yes after emphatically asking them if they were AT&T. We signed nothing and they proceeded to switch our line over after doing third-party verification (that voice robot thing you said yes to). So basically, our number was slammed, that is taken without our informed consent. They have been slapped down for this before by the FCC, by the way: https://www.fcc.gov/document/birch-communications-inc-slamming-order-2 I tried calling their customer service and manager. They would not let us out of the fraudulent contract without a cancellation fee of 50% of the supposedly agreed-upon 3-year contract, amounting to ~$1700. We were really scared, but we got out of it! There is hope! What we did was port the number over to another provider ASAP. Get your number out of their control, so they can't do something like cut your phone, release the number to the public, etc. Any legitimate phone company can do this, or you can even use something like Ooma, which is around $4/month for us. Just do something. Once you do this, it will trigger their system to send you a termination fee threat letter. For us, this was about $1700. Take this to your state's public utility commission (PUC). For us in California, we could just file a complaint on their website. Probably if you search "your state + public utilities commission + complaint", you'll get it. I explained that their acquisition of us as customers was done under false pretenses and that they lied about who they were. I also uploaded a scanned-in version of the monthly bill and the statement with the termination fee. I asked the PUC for absolution from the bill and termination fees. About a month later, Birch sent me a letter and CC'd to the PUC stating that they had followed all the rules, but as a favor to us, they will make the balance zero. Such nice people, I know. They weren't so nice when I called them on the phone. Personally, I think they just didn't want any more investigation. Bottom line: if you get this scam, report Birch to the public utilities commission for your state. I think they figure that for every one customer that puts up a fight, they'll scare ten into submission. Don't let that be you. It's also better if you jump on this early before you've made payments to them. Remember, you probably didn't sign anything and all that happened was a salesman did whatever it took to get your number ported and then is doing everything they can to stop you from realizing what you accidentally did. Do not pay any bills they send you if they scammed you this way. They probably don't have your card/bank info anyway. Just report to the PUC. Hope this helps someone. read more

They are unable to allow your business to make an international call. I was on the phone with them for over 1 hour trying to international calling added to our account. Someone was going to call us; however, they did not. I called again the next day and asked to speak with a supervisor. All were in a meeting but someone would call me ASAP. Three days later we still are unable to make the call and have yet to be contacted. read more

Out of the blue they cut off all international calling. A complete breach of my contract. Guess they think they can drag out having to honor their contract because they know we are leaving. Have two months left on plan. Looks like everyone has been squewed by this unbelievably dishonest company. Hope there is a class action. read more

This is a complete scam and they should not be in business!!! They scammed me by posing as and AT&T representative and then when I started getting bills and technicians showed up to change our modem, I realized something was fishy. I tried to cancel my account with them and was told it would be $1800!!! They never provided any services prior to the request for cancellation. It is now in a billing dispute that they claim will take up to 30 days to process. I was duped and they are deceitful and doing horrible business if they have to trick people into letting them provide service and then not letting people out of the contract. I spoken with 5 representatives to date and of the 5 three of them were very rude, defensive and unhelpful!!! It makes me think they deal with angry people a lot. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH BIRCH!!! read more

The WORST WORST WORST company. Absolutely NO customer service. I have had weeks worth of intermittent phone line outage as well as internet outage. I have made several calls to the company reporting the issue. All they did was do some looking on their end and do circuit tracing -- which is some hocus pocus "turn some switches on there end to fix it" That's such bullshit. They never fixed the problem. No one calls back. No sense of urgency to fix a problem. The chronic problem was never fixed until I demamded ( emphasize demamded) someone real and alive come out to look. Low and behold it was their equipment that was broken. Since the fix, 1 of the 4 lines don't work and they are now accusing me of faulty phones. They want me to hire an IT guy to look at it. WTF I pay hundreds a month for service! More calls to have the repair man return has been met with such stonewalling techniques! "we will call you back in 4 hours" ...LOL that was 8 hours ago. I have to call them AGAIN. When I ask to speak with a manager...I was told they "don't take incoming calls" ...what type crap is that? Base on nothing but 1 star rating its obvious Birch is a ROTTEN ROTTEN ROTTEN company!!! read more

If I could give negative stars I would. I moved my business TWO MONTHS AGO and I still can't get my service correct. I could go on and on about what I have asked them to change on my services. Long story short I had to pay almost $700 for two months of nonexitant service just to get my business number ported out to a different provider. I have had this number for 16 years so I my customers know this number. They have held my number hostage and overcharged me. I will be sooooo glad when I no longer have to deal with these people. If Birch tries to get your business, run away!!!! read more

One of the best phone scammers, slammers I've ever spoken to. The call with promises of discounts and free months while insinuating they are AT&T. Super fast sales pitch asking you to agree to terms of a contract with them. Only when asked three times did the guy finally admit he wasn't AT&T but in fact Birch Communications. I can only guess that they chose us because our AT&T contract was nearing expiration. I would never do business with a company that uses these methods to create new business. Once I looked online I saw comments from others who had experienced the same thing and worse. Those who actually signed up with these guys seem to experience nothing but trouble. I believe I would find someone else to take care of my phone and internet business. read more

Worst customer service EVER!!! I have a business phone with 5 lines and one of the lines hasn't worked in almost a month and they won't fix it. When I ask to speak to a supervisor they tell me they will call me back and they never do! Then I start all over!!! My customers are upset because that line won't roll and I am FURIOUS!!! read more

I would like to write a good review about this company since its nothing but negativety. They called to speak to the person that handles the at&t account and I passed the phone to my husband. We use to get calls like this from companies like "preferred" ((total scam)).. the representative was kind and truthful that they weren't calling from our current provider and they just lease lines from them and pass the savings along. I was more Concerned about our term agreement being broken but of course my husband didn't care he wanted savings since at&t was raping us for $230 for 2 phones and internet! ! Long Story short we Broke our contract ((which we didn't mind Since we did the math)) and now we are paying $140!! Just wish u guys could upgrade my DSL speed.. other then that im very satisfied! ! read more

well after seeing these reviews which are horrible!!! so i did my own research i signed up with BIRCH a couple of months ago because i couldnt understand why i was paying over $350 a month with att for just 5 lines. after careful consideration i gave birch a call back because as all companies even my own has kinks and small print that may make a customer not happy but all in all my rep is nice i can get a hold of her with in minutes and i havent had any tech problems and my bill has not reached over $230 which is a blessing and i hope tht all future customers do your on research weight your options and look at good and bad to make a decision if you are paying way to much with att or any other company!!! thanks BIRCH I SAVE ABOUT $1400 A YEAR NOW!!! oh yea there was one thing i had a cancellation fee with ATT for $852 which was fine since my service had no interruption so the facts even if i paid the cancellation in full over the course of the year i still save almost $400!!! WEIGHT YOUR OPTIONS BEWARE OF NOT HAVING YOUR OWN KNOWLEDGE!!!!!1 read more

We had Sage Telecom for years for our residential phone service. When Birch took over, we noticed no change in service. Now for the real test. Yesterday evening we discovered we had nothing but a faint "ground"hum in our lines. No calls out and no calls in. I must say I was not expecting prompt repair after seeing all the negative reviews on Yelp. Was going to call Birch via cell phone in the morning and decided to send them an email via Facebook and their website. I received a prompt reply and was given phone numbers and other email address and said our problem had been reported. My thoughts were; "Yea, right." Never had to talk to a rep, did not have to crawl under my house like Sage used to ask me to do to test my phone before they would send someone out. But much to my surprise ATT was working on the problem and we had phone service again before 1PM. Sage never got our line fixed that fast. (ATT's in ground lines are in terrible shape, so phone outages are a regular occurrence) This was our first time to call Birch. What can I say, we are happy. read more

No answer when calling customer service. On hold for hours, and still no answer. What else can i say accept bye bye?

They are worse than AT &T and that is really bad. I wish I did NOT have this company. If you have to call them you better hope you have about 30 minutes to wait. That is how long it takes for someone to answer the phone. Then no one knows what is going on they have to put a ticket in. Now if they do that don't wait for someone to call you back in regards to the ticket NOT NOT going to happen. I have called not 1 time not 2 times for 3 times for them to take a number off our account that we don't even have. They tell me every time they we will correct it. Do they NO NO NO still not corrected. They are sneaky and they lie lie lie to you!!!!!!!!!!! I told them I did not want to change carriers and they said no worries ma'am we are not going to change your service provider just help lower your bill, HA that was a lie. They THEY called my provider and disconnected my service. They also said NO contracts, we are a non profit business and we can not do contracts. WELL guess what that was a lie. BTW I am still fighting with them in regards to the extra number we don't have and they do not know how to read and understand a tax exempt form. People if ANYONE from BIRCH calls you DO NOT speak to them HANG UP IN THEIR FACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! read more

This company has absolutely ZERO customer service. I have been trying to relocate my business for 46 days now with NO help from BIRCH. I have made over 30 calls about this and I am no closer to getting our business relocated. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT USING THIS COMPANY! read more

This is the worst company I have ever worked with, they are the zit that won't go away, ever. They used rhetoric and lied to me about my phone service saying they worked with Century Link to lower phone bills, and then proceeded to charge me double what I was paying with Century Link. Then I couldn't get rid of them and they turned off my internet for over a week, which was devastating to my business. I am still getting bills from them 4 months after cancelling my service with them. Stay away, run for our life if they call you!!!!!! read more

Honestly, I would give no stars if I could. Not only do they have NO IDEA how to technically help, always claiming that they don't know or have no one who specializes in that field, they will even pawn it off on you and say you have to call another company to fix it. If you open a ticket? Six months of back time to recover. Or they'll mention something about an Upgrade. NEVER EVER UPGRADE. We ended up with phones we had to PAY FOR, but they had no means of installing it or guiding us through it. Though their site surveyor TOLD US we were okay for an easy upgrade, turns out he lied and we needed all kinds of wiring and system upgrades to accommodate. Come to find that it would cost us too much to do in such a short time frame and they REFUSED to cancel the upgrade. Ended up paying THEM nearly five grand to pay off the upgrade even though we never got any equipment installed or new plan established. It was bogus and they robbed us. Also: DO NOT GET CBEYOND from them. That company is no longer active and they have no experts in the field to fix any problem with it. CBEYOND is a name brand they tease you with and get you. They have the SLOWEST internet that crashes when a drizzle happens. DO NOT GET BIRCH. No matter how "cheap" they seem, it adds up and you end up spending more money than just going with other companies. THIS IS A THIRD PARTY COMPANY. Meaning they do NOTHING but talk and sell and make money - they do no installation, (you have to set it up and provide the workers to do this) and no uninstall (again out of your own pocket). Just dont. Customer service? They are good at one thing and one thing only: dodging blame. They will pin everything on you and blame you for every bit of it. No matter what it is. If you want someone speaking rudely in your ear and basically telling you "get over it" and "not our problem" well I suppose get this company. I, personally, HATE calling them and --- the saddest part -- I have to call them nearly once a week due to issues ON THEIR END. Its extremely frustrating and VERY difficult to run our business when the most important technological systems of it are unresponsive, crashing or just simply obsolete with no way to upgrade or repair. JUST. DONT. read more

Our medical office was with Cbeyond for years. When Birch bought them out we continued the service. Their service has been PITIFUL. In one month we had to place over 20 calls to them because we could not get into our boxes, patients could not leave messages, report outages, etc.. For the past several weeks we have been trying to port our telephone numbers out of the Birch business. Day after day, call after cal, nothing happened. They lied to us saying they had not received requests. Our IT consultant contacted them numerous times and so did AT&T. We are sick of their incompetence and mendacity. WE CONTACTED THE FCC TODAY, WHO WILL HELP US GET OUR NUMBERS PORTED FAR AWAY FROM BIRCH. DO NOT GO NEAR THESE IDIOTS. Shame on them read more

I have been with Birch for more than 3 years. I never at any time was told they were anyone but Birch. I switched from ATT as we are a small ma and pa business and my business phone was going up and up with ATT $179.00 and moving up. They gave me a figure of $46.00 per month. I still pay $46.00 a month. never went up yet . I tell everyone with a business to try them they won't regret this. read more

We have Birch. Our office flooded and we are offline (hot water heater above us failed...it only affected our office, not a widespread area). Birch assured us they had 24-hour support. Today my assistant called before 7:00AM and hung up after waiting over 45 minutes for them to answer (multiple calls). Then she called the billing department and they were quick to pick up. When she explained our situation the billing person was not sympathetic. She did refer us to a human who said the earliest they could get here is 2:30PM, despite the fact that our business is helpless without phone and internet. I guess the moral of the story is: If you're going to use Birch, make sure you don't have any Acts of God. read more

My disabled senior citizen mom made the mistake of having this company as home phone provider. This company shouldn't even be in business. My mother switched provider and the account was cancelled in October 19th, Birch still keep billing her and after my sister called her and asked why they keep billing her then they stated that it was an error and that she was going to received a refund, the most ridiculous thing is that it takes 120 days for a customer to receive a refund. I called today, December 27 to follow up with the refund and after 2 customer service representative, the billing department stated that the 120 days period started on December 1st even though the account was cancelled in October 19th. If you expect to have a great service, an effective and professional customer service please DO NOT choose Birch. read more

I almost never write reviews on yelp, but Birch's service is so horrendous that I decided to write one just to warn anybody who is thinking about using them. I would give 0 stars if I could. Each customer service representative I have spoken with has no idea what they are talking about. Instead of trying to resolve the issue, they all just transfer the call to different departments, and each knows less than the last. They are listerally the worst company I have ever dealt with. You have been warned. read more

In the 25 years of being in business this is the worst phone company I have ever dealt with. I Guarantee they will charge you an extra month and a half of services after you have ported your numbers and cancelled with them. No other telephone carrier has treated us as bad as Birch. And that is saying something! read more

These people are a bunch of crooks! I called to get a line added to an office. First they said it would take about 3 weeks - we waited the 3 weeks & no one ever showed up. The new person in our office just uses a cordless phone since the line was never activated. I received the birch bill & they are charging me $159 for the technician - the one that never showed up! I called to dispute the charge - again they said it would take a month. A month later they called and said my complaint was denied. So basically I paid $159 just to call them - they said the tech was here - I said if he had been here the line would be working & its not. I'm switching providers..,good bye crooks!! read more

I am in the process of getting OUT of this company's clutches! We have small business and I switched part of our business to their company. Their sales reps lie about the entire contract. I am stuck paying a bill much larger than I had with AT & T. I have set up to go back to AT&T as fast as I can. Do NOT believe what you are told and read everything they have on paper, and save yourself a big headache and stay away from this company!! read more

Not great service. They are glorified resellers using other phone companies networks and probably on the cheap side. because we keep having phone outages. 4 times in the last 6 weeks! I would go to a real phone company the next time. and as soon as i am out of contract I will. They just do not seem to care when our phones go out. read more

Our company lost phone service at 6:30am on a Friday morning. We rely heavily on phone service... After they sent ATT to fix a problem out at around 11, they said they needed to replace our IAD. After no response on when they would come, I continued to call while our company has NO PHONE SERVICE!!! It is Saturday afternoon and still no contact or phone service, even after "being escalated" twice. Stay away from this sinking ship, lest they drag your company down with it. More as it develops... read more

If you have AT&T as your provider both personal and business and Birch Communications contact you about saving you money, HANG UP. Our business lines has been down for 3 days with no resolve! read more

NEGATIVE 5 Stars!!! (If only I could!) Our owner signed us up for Ceybeyond who later was bought out by Birch Communications. Problem #1 - Their sales associate lied to us. He knew we needed a data plan for 10 users in our small company. He said "Oh our DSL is so much faster because it's a dedicated line, bla, bla, bla." So our owner signed us up. Since the first week, our internet and email services continued to go down at least 3 times a week. Finally after 3 months, we decided to use our old ISP provider Comcast because we needed a reliable connection. So we figured we were stuck paying out the 3 years because we were under contract, so we did it. Now comes time for us to cancel our service. Problem #2 - We contact Comcast again and try to port our services over to them. So what does Birch do? They deny access for our IT person and we could only port the phone service. Our domain name and email accounts were basically held hostage. This is a ploy for Birch so they can delay you for over 90 days. By doing this, according to their contract, this voids the 30 day cancellation letter. So when you finally are able to transfer the domain name and email accounts, they charge you a termination fee. They say "Well this is stated in our contract that there is an auto-renew. And if you submit the cancellation letter and do not transfer ALL the services over to a new provider, the cancellation is null & void. So based on my experience with Ceybeyond/Birch Communications, they are a poor excuse for a Telecommunications Company. I WOULD NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM! But this is only MY opinion. And if anyone from Birch Communications is reading this? Your company is worse than Yakov Smirnoff opening for the Spin Doctors at the Iowa State Fair! (Yea, it's that bad!) read more

Birch is a never ending nightmare. I was locked into a three year contract I never signed. I moved offices nine months ago only to be told if I wanted a landline my office number would have to change. I'm a attorney and don't want a new number. I was advised by Birch that it would cost thousands to break my contract that was up in January 2016. Thus, I paid $60 a month to have my calls forwarded to my cell number. Come January 2016 when I was ready to switch to AT&T where I could have a landline I was advised my contract automatically renewed for a year. I never agreed to have my contract automatically renewed. They are thieves. I'm considering taking out a large billboard warning consumers not to go with Birch. read more

The worse telephone company in the USA we had an account with cbeyond communications for 10 years suddenly the switched us to Birch communications than after that we never had the same rates and service if we need help they put you on hold for more than 30 minutes to answer the and the person answer the phone dos't know anything and at the end no solution. If you like the best service and before you switch call samedayex.com and they will tell you about the experience with Birch and the switch. Birch is a scam. read more

I just received the 3rd call from them in a year or two & told the guy that they'd called before to tell me of this great deal and lowering of our phone rates [they never say we'd be porting the number from CenturyLink to Birch, I might add]. Birch leads one to believe this is something that will just show on my phone bill....which if it would, fine, then why am I talking to him? Shouldn't it just show up? He couldn't or didn't answer the Q [since he didn't explain that moving the service from CL to Birch would be the way to see the savings]. I told him there was no free lunch, that his calling to tell me of these wonderful savings​ coming down the pike was silly and he quietly hung up. Fortunately I caught the 'Birch Communications' name when I first answered and could find the other reviews here. Birch is deceptive in its sales technique and, from these reviews, is terrible in its provision of service. read more

i.ve been without service since sept. 1st-during this time my wife and I have spent a combined total of several hours listening to the same crumby canned music and repetitive messages and have yet to speak to anyone. at best service is faii recommend you find another service! read more

If I could give them a zero the review would be closer to correct. My wife moved us to Birch. We wanted to move the number to a wireless because the line was useless every time it rained and she cancelled the account. Then tried to move the number. They would not let us have the number since we cancelled the account. Mind you all of this was attempted in a few hours. We had to reinstate the account to get the number back. I told them we would only use it for the year and then we would move the number. So a year later I tried to move it and found that it had "automatically renewed" for another year. I went ahead and moved the number knowing I would have to pay a large termination fee. They did not terminate the account even though there is no number associated with it according to my online access and continued my monthly charge. I call and remain on hold forever. I can not get away from these people. It is a nightmare. Regret the day we ever became associated with this Company. read more

I've tried to cancel our account with Birch several times and they refuse to allow us to do so. They serve as our long distance provider in New York state. The line associated with the account was cancelled last fall. We've tried to cancel the account several times and they keep sending bills. I even paid one thinking I forgot to cancel, but now that I know I cancelled and just got another bill I am convinced this is simply a way to collect more money. read more

Absolutely terrible experiences with this company. First, they called saying they were AT&T trying to save me money. I made the switch unfortunately, because they said they were partnered with AT&T and it would not affect my bill in anyway, except to lower it. Complete lies!! AT&T plans were all canceled, Birch has literally nothing to do with AT&T. When I signed up the operator said there was no contract, it was on a month to month basis. Paid for the 1 month worth of service I used and tried to cancel numerous times. I had to go through AT&T to get my lines ported back over, because Birch would not help me at all. Continually getting invoiced by Birch saying I still have an active phone line with them, and I never canceled. They keep telling me I'm stuck in a contract I never signed. I call them every month I get an invoice to let them know I will not be paying any more money to them, they do not have any of my phone lines, and they're a complete scam. Customer service will not help you at all, you have to take matters in to your own hands. I refused to pay anymore and they finally got the hint and stopped invoicing me. What are they going to do sue me? Go ahead! I'd like to see you explain to a judge why I owe you for non-existent services, or early termination fees for a contract I never signed. Birch was not even cheaper than AT&T, it was the exact same if not more. Voicemail never worked, lines would go in and out. Customer service is a complete joke. Moral of the story: Stay with you current carrier. Do not switch to Birch. Do not believe ANYTHING they say, they will do anything to try and trick you! read more

Awful service! NOT EVEN ONE STAR. I own a business, and has been using Birch for over 2 years, has one more year to go. They said they would send me a $100 voucher after I switched over to their service, the voucher had never showed, and when I called to question them, they simply told me NO such thing. Also, You would not able to change or ask anything thru their web. They make you to call on the phone, and each time you talked to a rep and it would cost you for $4.95, they called that " Directory call" read more

Some of the rudest customer service I have ever received. My only other option is AT&T, which is more expensive or going with only cell and my house has terrible reception so I am stuck with Birch, but if you can avoid them then by all means do so. Horribly rude people!! read more

Deceptive.. We got a call from these people claiming they work with our original service provider, Verizon, and that they would lower our monthly rate. I unknowingly agreed to their services believing they worked with Verizon. I knew this company was sketchy as soon as they transferred me to some auctioneer guy, who rapidly and undiscernibly spat out the contract during our 3rd party agreement. When I talked to an actual representative from Verizon, he advised me to file a complaint to the FCC because this company has been known for using "deceptive marketing strategies". Keep in mind that this company was just recently fined $4.9 million and forced to reimburse $1.9 million to customers this past December by the FCC for using deceptive marketing strategies. PLEASE BE AWARE!! read more

This is the worst company a person could ever sign up for!!! I was initially was tricked into signing up with them. I own a small business and had AT&T which I was satisfied with. One day, while helping a customer, they called stating that they could help bring my AT&T bill down for the phone service. I said I couldn't talk because I was with a customer, they insisted that it wouldn't take long. Honestly, I just wanted to get them off the phone ( I should have simply hung up). Next month I get a bill from Birch, confused as to what Birch even is. I called them trying to cancel and go back to AT&T because they misrepresented themselves stating they are AT&T. They locked me in a 36 month contract and my phone bill actually went up. It's impossible to ever reach them. Recently I attempted to reach them for 3 days staying on hold without any success. Plus their customer service is open only until 5pm eastern time, I'm on the west coast. Has anyone ever heard of a company that you can only reach until 2pm???? How inconvenient! Hate everything about Birch communications and hope they go out of business soon, so that no one else gets tricked like I did. read more