HORRIBLE COMPANY!!! They claimed to be affiliated with AT & T (which they are not) and they would be handling the small business accounts. Also they would save us all kinds of money (which they did not in fact our price is higher). Also somewhere along the line I said yes to something and now I have a three year contract which I did not know until I contacted AT & T and switched back over to them NOW I am receiving a $1650.00 termination fee. I have called the Federal Trade Commission and will be calling the Attorney General next.. BEWARE!!!!! A VERY DISHONEST COMPANY!!! read more

We were a corporate customer of Cbeyond which was acquired by Birch. Do not do business with these people - we cancelled our service with them on January 30, 2015 in accordance with the terms of our Cbeyond contract. Our new carrier ported over one number on January 30th but we had to make a special call to Birch on January 30th to disconnect our lines (couldn't be arranged ahead of time according to these highly incompetent people - we had to make a call on the day we wanted the service disconnected which we did). I have repeatedly requested a bill for the amount we owe them for service between January 17th and January 30th when we disconnected; they can't seem to provide one. Instead I am being billed monthly for our previous full service. I called on February 28th after receiving a bill for 2 months service and spoke with a representative who stated "they made a mistake and accidentally hadn't disconnected our lines". As of March 23rd, I am being billed for 3 months of all the services cancelled and ported. "We haven't been able to disconnect your lines yet - they are still pinging so you will still get a bill". On Friday I received a letter threatening to disconnect my service if I don't pay their bill - I can only hope! If ever a class action suit was needed it's for companies like this - DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY, YOU WILL REGRET EVEN TAKING THEIR SOLICITATION CALL. I will be filing a complaint with BBB today. read more

Our business has had Birch DSL/phone service for a number of years and we've been more or less satisfied with it, until recently. About six or seven weeks ago, the DSL modem, which had been acting dodgy on and off for a couple of months, finally decided to stop working reliably. After talking with Birch I was told that WE were responsible for the cost to replace the modem. The tech helpfully added that we might consider looking at Ebay or Amazon to see what deals on the modem we could find. Outside of that, any type of on-site service call from them would have cost us in the neighborhood of $150 or more. I convinced the office manager to switch to Comcast, where, for the same cost as what we were paying Birch, we got 10x faster internet speeds and equipment that would be serviced/replaced at no expense to us! So I switched and got everything set up and working and then came the kicker. We cancelled our Birch account and a few days later received a letter saying we owed them a $600 early termination fee! After a somewhat confusing telephone conversation, in which I was told that we had never actually signed any sort of contract but that we had most likely given verbal confirmation to a contract over the phone (something the office manager doesn't remember happening after all these years), I was faxed a copy of a standard boilerplate contract. I also had the rep I spoke with open a dispute regarding the early termination fee, but there's still no paper trail that definitively shows we agreed to anything. The rep told me that there might be a recorded agreement but that she didn't have access to that to verify anything. Waiting for the other shoe to drop on this early termination dispute, but I can tell you that we're gonna fight this tooth and nail. Crappy service all around and for the same price you could have something a LOT better. BEWARE OF BIRCH!! read more

Is there a rating less than 0? I left Birch & Cebeyond in Oct. 2014. I've spent 45 min to 1 hour on the phone every month since. They say that this month my account was finally cancelled. I'd overpaid $1800 & today they told me I'd get a check for just over $800. Normally I never got return call with my concerns & each month when they promised they'd fix this & get me a refund, I asked for a follow up email with what we'd discussed to be sent. Only 1 time was I able to get the email. Today after 40 minutes on the phone I called & l/m for Chris Aversano exec vice pres & Kirby Godsey chairman of the board. Neither called back but finally the billing department did call back with the offer to give me 1/2 my refund :-( I'm worn down & will likely take it. DON"T DO BUSINESS WITH BIRCH read more

Stay away! Absolutely the worst communication company ever. They're absolutely horrible to deal with, are slow to respond, you'll be on hold forever waiting for them to answer the phone and their prices aren't competitive. We made the mistake of signing a contract with them for 3 years and counting the days till I was done. It took them the first 6 months to get the crackling and interference out of our phone lines. We had six months worth of bad customer calls and irritated salespeople and customers trying to deal with the horrible phone service. Even when BIRCH text came in at the store they still waited on hold waiting for corporate help for 45 minutes. What a joke. I wish I could give them a -10 rating read more

How????? Please tell me how this company is still in business? I have a small insurance agency (there's 5 of us total) and somehow I keep getting sucked into believing that Birch is finally going to solve my phone and internet problems. I feel like such a fool for hanging in as long as I have. If I have to take a loan from the bank to payoff my contract, that's what I'm going to do. Please everyone, learn from my mistakes. read more

This is my second review here in less than a week. I am having a problem getting the sales and install people to call me back. Have been dealing with this since before Christmas. One of them called me back and I was a customer and he said he would hold but hung up before I finished with my customer. It is ok that I held on for over 16 minutes to talk to them. Nobody call refer me to a supervisor or call forward me to one. I currently have 3 accounts with this company that were with Cbeyond (which had great customer service) and tring to set up the fourth. read more

Truly the worst service I've ever dealt with. As I'm typing this I'm on hold, which always takes about 30-45 minutes to even get them to pick up!!! A previous employee signed with Birch before I started working here and the contract will be up in April 2018. I don't think I can tolerate dealing with them until then. May just have to cut losses and go back to AT&T. I've had to call Birch at least 6 times in the last 9 months and it's gotten really old. On top of their really bad service, it took 3 months and 5 visits for them to actually get the service switched over in the first place. I tried cancelling it then and they told me it was going to cost over $1,000.00 and they hadn't even hooked up our service at that point!!!! BTW, I'm still on hold to report a problem with our phone lines....Been on hold for 24 minutes at this point!!! UPDATE: I was on hold for 52 minutes and finally hung up. Trying back right now and I've been on hold for 15 this time...so far!!!! read more

STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY. We signed a 1-year contract in 2010. They were nice company until now. We were charged for termination fees after we were with them for 6 years. We called to question about the termination fee. All they said was because we didn't call in to do our annual renew. Therefore our contract will automatical renew annually. We wished they couldn't have told us when we signed our contract at 1st. We charged us $50 a month for a termination fee. We would give them NEGATIVE Star if they have. So, watch out when you sign with them. read more

Poor reception on land lines and often left without any service. Extremely poor customer service if you are able to get a hold of anyone at all. Good to keep a cell phone handy in case you need to call them on one of the days your phone does not work. Oh and BTW a $200 cancellation fee on a month to month contract. read more

Birch is the worse company our office has ever worked with. The Customer service is a run a round and it takes for ever for them to answer the phone. No one takes responsibility for their errors. They increase the bill without explanation. You can never a the right answer. It is like pulling teeth to get one of their technicians out to the office. They always want you to use your own IT even when its their problem. They start at a low price to hook you in then keep raising the prices and if you have a contract you cant get out of it. I would not recommend anyone getting Birch. read more

I would give them a minus one star but that isn't an option. Birch Communications should be shut down by the FCC. Customer service is actually just a deferral system from one rep/dept to another, until you finally become disgusted and hang up. Their telemarketing arm called my mother, who has Alzheimer's, and talked her into switching the phone service to their company from AT&T. She is 85 years old and is in a nursing home, and the service is actually in my name, not hers. I only had the service so that my sister could talk to her mother a couple times a week since she lives about a thousand miles away. When I got the bill I of course was shocked. Initially I wanted to just switch back to AT&T but of course that was going to be very complicated and practically disallowed. So after several hours on the phone with an assortment of different reps I decided to just terminate the service and now we have no service for her. I was afraid that this same thing would probably just happen again and trying to avoid the constant barrage of telemarketers is impossible. I did file a complaint with the FCC in hopes that I can have the $103.39 bill removed. I would hope that this disreputable company of dedicated thieves and scammers and slammers can at some point be stopped. read more

Trying to get out of contract!!!! Waste of time and money. Once you are in a contract with them, they can change whatever they want and charge whatever they feel. I have been trying to cancel my contract for years and they always have some kind of loop hole to stick me into another year. Even to the extent that they admittedly threw my certified letter away and stated that they did not receive it. I have confirmation from the post office, but they "have no record" of receiving it. There should be some kind of prosecution that they should have to face for this! read more

They have no respect for me or my employees. They call several times a day which is annoying after I have told them many times not to call and they assured me that they would put me on their do not call list. On top of that they will call during our busy lunch period. The worst part is the fact that the people they hire for customer service can be so rude. I understand it is their job to call and try to sell their services, so I treat them with respect. I can't say the same, however, for them. They have hung up on me so many times just for me asking what company they are with. I know its them because they are the only company that calls and asks to speak to whoever handles the AT&T account. I would never do business with a company that is so rude to their potential clientele. I can't imagine their customer service gets any better after you're their customer and having problems. read more

They have used the tactic of pretending to be Century Link in the past, now they are actually calling twice and it is very clever. They will call and when our front desk answers they jot down their name and then hang up. They will then call in a few hours later and hope to get another front desk person, if they get the same one they hang up and try later, if they get a new person they say they are the original employee and need to speak with me directly. Pretty freaking clever. All this is recorded on my system and I even offered to send the logs to a Birch supervisor along with recordings of both calls, they politely declined. These people are pretty clever, but a scam artist is a scam artist so please watch your step, they are out to rob you while being protected by silly trade laws. read more

THIS ISN'T A SCAM JUST A SEMI-SCAM CRAP SERVICE. We use these guys at our small hotel for phone and wifi, and they charge so much for literally the worst service I've encountered. They bundle a bunch of bullshit together for services they don't even provide and they charge way more for 1.5mpbs upload/download. That is a straight up JOKE in today's day and age. I had faster internet in 2001 for just my home and probably even earlier with dial-up. They charge 161 a month. Cox charges 119 for 28/7 mpbs. If it wasn't for their "termination fee" of $2200, we would be out of this terrible contract as fast as we could say the word "cancel".Calling customer service with them is like playing popcorn. Every question is someone else's problem. They might as well just play a recording that says "That is [blank department]. I can transfer you now". I'm writing this because I'm genuinely concerned for people thinking about doing business with them, these guys blow a fat you know what. i would give 0 stars too, just like everyone else on here. read more

I am very disappointed with Birch and have cancelled my account with them. I regret ever giving them my credit card. I had Capsule for more than 10 years and was very happy with them. I made very few long distance calls from my land line so I had Capsule for long distance and regional calling. My bills were very small, always between $1.50 and $12.00 and often around $5. Billing was done automatically to my credit card and there was no paperwork. I could review bills and call records on-line but nothing was ever mailed to my home. Capsule was bought by Birch and my account was transferred. I got letters from Birch several times saying everything would be the same so I just forgot about it. The first two months, things continued as they had under Capsule so I gave them my credit card for automatic billing. In the third month (right after I provided my credit card) my bills shot up by a factor of 7 and it was mostly fees. 15% of the bill was for calls I made and 85% was fees. The next day I switched to Verizon which is my local provider. That day I also called Birch to cancel all services and to close my account. The next day I called Birch again to request a letter stating the account was closed. I wanted something in writing from them that would assist me in fighting any future billing to my credit card. Customer service insisted the fees were announced in an earlier billing. I checked and there was mention in the fine print that starting next month etc. All fine print. One of their fees is $5.00 for nothing, just for having an account with them. They bought my account and loaded it with fees. The Ma Bell provider I switched to will charge $2.00 per month plus cost of calls and taxes. I consider Birch a criminal organization. I resent companies that get accounts and then take advantage of people. I have two pieces of advice about Birch. First, avoid them they are thieves. Second, never give them your credit card or banking information. Read the filtered yelp review and see what I mean. It says: "BEWARE BUSINESSES!! Very sneaky tactics. They lie & act like they're affiliated w/AT&T. After you switch to them, then try & leave because you realize they are a scam, they charge a $1700 termination fee. They turn you over to a collection agency within a month & you get calls relentlessly." read more

BEWARE..birch employees call you saying they are from "your phone company" and pretend to be from ATT. they offer you service changes and you sign up. they record you. ONLY after you get billed do you realize ATT was cut off and you were changed to birch W/o your consent. they know what happens and DO not care. I've emailed their marketing director who responded with sarcasm and legalese. These people are crooks! and are getting away with it. the BBB will not take action as you are RECORDED to agree but don't play the full recording where they don't mention being from birch but from "your phone company". read more

Absolutely the worst customer service Ive had in some time with this company. They over bill for services, take no ownership on customer service issues, and they simply do not care about their customers. I deal with quite a few businesses as I am a business owner and I use vendors for certain tasks, and Birch is hands down the worst in regards to responsiveness, not providing the services agreed upon, only caring about billing their clients and I was always on time paying my bill. Avoid at all costs. There are too many other phone/IT providers out there that care about their customers to use Birch Communications. Read the other reviews listed online. There is certainly fire where this smoke originated from! read more

Just like everyone else on this site, BEWARE!!!!!! I wish I could give 0 stars. Again, just like everyone else, this company called me stating they were an AT&T rep and they were going to lower our bill. Typically, I immediately tell them that we're not interested, but this time was different. This time, they told me that they were going to add Birch to our AT&T account so that our bill was going to go down to $69/month... it was going to happen whether we wanted it to or not! They didn't give us a choice! Funny thing was, they still expected me to do the third party verification to verify that I "understood" what was happening... three times. This is company and I'm the office manager. I don't have authorization to switch phone companies! I didn't know we were switching phone companies! They had me backed into a wall with no choice (at least that's the way they made it sound)! When I received the first bill from Birch, that's when I started wondering what was going on... not only that, but I get a bill from AT&T with a $750 termination fee. Why? I called AT&T to find out why were being charged a termination fee, especially since we didn't cancel our service. They said we did cancel our service and I opted to reactivate it immediately. Birch stated that all the numbers had been ported over. I explained I didn't give permission to port over the numbers and they said I did... they had it all on a recording. It's funny how they keep bringing up that there's a recording of me verifying everything, but yet when it comes to them "investigating" the incident they're nowhere to be found. Birch had stated that if the numbers weren't ported over immediately by AT&T, we would lose our numbers forever. Oh, but if we ported them over immediately, we would be charged a termination fee! Needless to say, we're back with AT&T but we're still dealing with the headache of Birch still billing us! Yay! My advice... Stay away from Birch under any and all circumstances! You'll live a much better life if you do! Oh, and going to the BBB does no good... then Birch tells BBB that there was no wrongdoing at all... that it's all in the customer's head! read more

One star is wayyyyy too much. There isn't a large enough negative rating to give this company. Read the reviews people. RUN if you are ever approached with this company for service. After 4 years of dealing with their totally terrible, unknowledgeable, untimely, ever changing service, I told our office staff I wouldn't deal with them anymore. It's been that bad- read more

I am still giving this company 1 star because their supervisor are so rude. The manager that I spoke with was nice and listened to me. He agreed to cancel any termination fees as long as I paid for the service that we did use. I informed him that his company called me pretending to be CenturyLink, I told him that was misrepresentation of his company. I told I was filing a report with the State Attorney General and that I would delete it if they voided out the termination fees. This gentleman was very nice and he agreed to do so. However I still believe Birch is a Bad Company. I do not recommend anybody working with this company. I do recommend filing a report with the State Attorney General if this does happen to you and they refuse to terminate your service. By filing this report it will cease and dismiss any bills that you have with this company if it goes through. read more

Horrible customer service and exorbitant fees. Like another reviewer, I got stuck with Birch when Birch bought out my prior provider, Capsule Communications. Fees shot up significantly under Birch and I pulled the plug and switched to Pioneer Telecom. However, it has taken over 3 months to get my residential and toll free number service canceled from Birch. Despite asking them to cancel all my service during my initial call in January, they only canceled my long distance but kept my incoming toll free service in place. Another bill and another round of fees in February prompted me to call them again in early March. A helpful rep told me she was canceling everything and issuing a refund for the February fees. I thought we were done.... until no refund came and yet ANOTHER bill came in March!! I just got off the phone with them again, now 3 months since my initial cancellation call. I am assured that everything is taken care of now, but I'm not holding my breath and will be disputing charges with my credit card provider. AVOID THESE GUYS!!! read more

We switched to Birch Communications for my business. What a mistake ! They said everything would remain the same as far as phone service. The only thing that would change would be the price. So we switched to Birch. The phone rings and notice we don't have caller id. So I called Birch and set on the phone for 25 minutes waiting to talk to someone. Finally when I got to speak to someone and they said I didn't order caller id. I told them I was told that my phone service remain the same. So she said caller id would be turned back on in 3 business days. Five days went by no caller id. I call back only to wait on the phone again. So i called back to verizon and switched back. So Birch sends me a bill for two hundred dollars for a cancellation fee. I think I need to send them a bill for lost time for answering the phone when google calls ten times a day trying to sell advertising. Whatever you do don't switch to Birch. They do not do what they say they are going to do. Neal Johnson read more

Called them to follow up on continued billings after I'd cancelled their service. I've never, ever, had a "customer service" laugh at me before. AVOID THESE IDIOTS. read more

We have tried for over one month to have Birch upgrade our internet speed but after one missed appointment and then Birch sending USED faulty equipment (the tech informed me it was used equipment) not once but two times we have given up.trying to upgrade with Birch. Each time they failed it was 7 to 10 days before they could re-schedule. The equipment control person said they would overnight a NEW replacement part for the third attempt but they did not do it and wanted us to wait another week. They use independent service techs, at least in the Los Angeles area and an out of state parts distribution point. They will not schedule an install appointment until you receive the part and that appointment is on average five days after you receive the part. The sales person could not do anything as they departmentalize the sales, parts department and installation (customer service). No one is in-charge. It is really like this company does not want your business and they go out of their way not to perform. We will be making other arrangements, I don't believe anything could be as bad as this experience. We have been a customer for many years (old Cbeyond customer) but have had enough.. read more

I inherited two Birch telephone accounts from the former treasurer of a not for profit I volunteer for. I suddenly stopped receiving a printed statement from one of the accounts, although the account is being debited as always. Decided to give them a call today to see what is going on. Silly me! I thought I would actually speak to a live person. After several calls to three different numbers Birch has listed and being left in the queue forever, I never spoke to anyone. (You know the old routine; "your call will be answered in 5 minutes" and twenty minutes later, nothing). I then stated my issue via the email address on the phone bill. It generated an auto reply "Thank you for your message. This mailbox is not monitored. Please contact our customer service team at 1-866-424-5100." Time to set up some new accounts with a reliable provider. If you are shopping for a new phone company, please use anyone other than Birch. read more

BEWARE- They PREy on older people. My mother, 83 , was "signed up" Now she has to pay $200 to cancel. This company is using the ATT infrastructure and charging people for it. BEWARE BEWARE. They tape your voice recording- probably because so many people want to cancel it. It's a scam read more

Caveat emptor!! If there were a rating below one star that is what I would give this company. If you decide to work with them be extremely cautious!! They have the finest print that I have seen in a contract. Their conditions for disconnect of service are lengthy and complicated. Even when I was very specific that I did not want a contract, they put me on a contract and charged me a disconnect fee. I paid it in the end because I just can't stand to deal with this company any longer and I know that they would try to trick me in another way. The employees are rude and unhelpful. This has been my worst experience working with a service company in 20 years. read more

We communicated with Birch 6 weeks prior to moving my business that has been established for 7 years. Our numbers were with a seperate carrier, and Birch purchased that company. Birch told us there would be no issue in transferring our phone lines to the new location. It has been 2 weeks sonce we moved and they have been telling me they were wroking on it. I was just told by the representative that there is no way to get our lines moved, and they cannot transfer our lines to the new location, meaning that the relationships we have established for 7 years with our numbers will be lost. NEVER do business with this company. They are liars, and horrible. read more

How do you get away with charging a company for a toll free number that they never had?? They said they bought our account from another company, and when I told them we never had an 866 phone number, they argued with me and continued billing. We got a bill for calls from all over the US at all hours of the night. Our office rarely calls outside of CA, and we close at 5:00, so they did remove the fraudulent charges. After getting the run-around, I finally got someone to disconnect the number and cancel the account. A few months later I got another bill for late fees, etc. Once again I argued that we never had an account but they refused to remove the charges. I won't be paying. They can shove it you know where. read more

This company is absolutely terrible and my rating would be negative 10 stars or worse. They provided, or should I say BURDENED me with one month of poor service that I was billed double what they quoted. I cancelled immediately upon receiving and paying the first bill. Then they try to threaten you to pay an exorbitant cancellation fee. SCAM, SCAM, SCAM, Stay as far away from these clowns as you can!!!!!!!!!!!!! read more

DO NOT USE BIRCH! RUN AS FAR AS YOU CAN!!!! We had 5 phones to be ported over which they managed to port only 3 over. Asked them to open ports to receive emails they did not do that - no emails since Friday to Sunday night (spent all Sunday trying to get them to open the ports). They had our company Sales Person as primary contact, even though he was not on contract - could not talk to anyone at Birch as I was not in there system. Our phone lines are choppy, extensions not working, and many other issues. If you run a company stay FAR away from them - you will lose your money and mind as they have no clue what they are talking about and doing. Pay a little extra and get better service else where. read more

Pushy, belligerent sales people. Lucas would not take no for an answer. I heard the same pitch for telephone services EXACTLY from other groups. When I said I was not interested, he called back and pretty much called me stupid for not changing. Even if I believed the lower rates were real, I would not go with Birch Communications. read more

Repeated phone calls posing as my current service provider. I have repeatedly asked to be removed from their calling lists to no avail. I have twice filed complaints with the FCC, which has done no good. 26 solicitation calls in 4 weeks. That costs us time and money. Was a CBeyond customer, but I will NEVER use their services. read more

This is a review of Birch Communication's business telephone service; it was fine when the company was CBeyond, and then ... uh oh ... Birch took over. Run as fast as you can from this company. Horrible. Every time you speak to someone you get a different story. And canceling Birch is a nightmare from hell. Watch out for the attempt to add big fees at the end. Bad news from start to finish. read more

After calling my business and saying they needed to talk to the person in charge, they finally got ahold of me. Stated that they were AT&T, and that they were calling to confirm that our business rates were being lowered. They then sent me to an automated line that had several questions, but I couldn't hear any of them, because the "supervisor" kept speaking over the line so I couldn't tell what was going on. They called back to complete the order, and the rep finally said it was birch communication and that they weren't affiliated with AT&T in any way. He stated that the order would not go through because I wasn't aware that it was a completely different company. It's seriously the best scam I've ever heard. They caught me off guard while I was busy at work and surrounded by customers and coworkers and I'm sure they were aware of that. If AT&T call, ask if it's actually them. If it's a separate company, especially Birch, run to the hills. These guys are complete jokes. read more

BIRCH COMMUNICATIONS, INC. There should be a NO STAR rating. However, if we are rating on FRADULENT COMPANIES, BIRCH COMMUNICATIONS would get 10 stars. This company called me and represented themselves to be with A T & T. The representative already had all of my phone line numbers (some that aren't public) and my information. He said he was with ATT and wanted to get me a lower rate but nothing would change. I know, I thought it to be to good to be true, but I had just recently purchased this business and had been dealing with ATT to get the service information switched into my name so I kinda thought the call to be legit. I did reiterate to the rep that he was in fact with ATT and nothing at all would change and he confirmed. About 1 week later I receive a bill from Birch Communications. I call ATT and they confirm that my phone lines had been switched and they said it happened a lot with Birch Communications. I switch my service back to ATT and receive a bill from Birch for a $200 cancellation fee. I call Birch (3 times) and each time I was told that they would need to review it and someone would get back to me. On November 14, I finally receive a call back from Monique. She was very rude and said she was getting very frustrated because she had been trying to contact me several times and no one would get back to her. What a joke! She then told me that the company had reviewed the recordings and that I authorized the switch and I owed a cancellation fee of $200. A word of warning. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH BIRCH COMMUNICATIONS. They are not an honest company. read more

The worst company in the history of American Business! How can a company take money from a customer and provide them with internet speeds that third world countries can do better, and then refuse to let them out of a contract? They are crippling our business and will continue to do so unless I pay $16k to break the contract!!! RUN RUN RUN from this company, it was formerly Cebeyond and they were no better. Please be a smart consumer and use another provider! read more

Horrible customer service. Entire company needs to be overhauled. If you're not going to provide superior service, then you should not provide service at all! read more