During my weekly visit with my 85 year old father to review mail and pay bills, he had welcome letter from Birch Communications. He asked me who it was. After reading I asked him if he had been contacted by someone about his phone service. He said no and that he was with ATT. I explained that according to the letter he was now with Birch. He had no memory of talking to anyone at Birch.
I called Birch and they told me that my father had agreed to switch his local and long distance phone service. He further told me that they had a recording of him agreeing to switch phone service providers. Again I asked my father if he had done so and he said no. I asked to hear the recording which was vauge. The part that was recorded was of someone asking my father for his name and address and to press #. There was also question which my father did not understand about change to phone service and press #.
When I explained that my father did not know what was going on or what the call was about I was told that it did not matter. He had agreed to switch service to Birch. It was futher explained to me that if he cancelled then he would be responsible for paying 1/2 the monthly total of $50 for the 36 month contract term which amounts to $900. As a 85 year old on a fixed income this is not possible! I was told that if I could produce a power of attorney then I could get the service teminiated.
What a sham! What a scam! Amazing you can establish a contract by phone but you can not cancel a bogus service. Fortunately I do have power of attorney. I will also be consulting with our attorney. In the meantime I have made sure that my father is on the DO NOT CALL list.
My warning to others is BEWARE! So many of our elderly are caught unaware of the scams and bogus sales that are out there. Now I have to spend additional time trying to get this resolved and get ATT of which there was NO contract back.
I was contacted by what I was told was AT&T calling me to offer me a discount on our AT&T bill. WRONG! It was Birch and they lied and did not say they were from Birch. There was a third party female screaming into the phone talking over the voice and I could not hear the questions. They are telling us we are in a three year contract and will have to pay $3000 to get out of the contract for early termination fees! They played the recording back to me and it most certainly is NOT the conversation I had...they have an male talking to me and there was distintcly a female screaming and telling me when to answer the questions and to just say yes! In speeaking with them today, the customer service representative I spoke with said she is the highest in the company that I can go! Run around, run around. Do not ever believe these people!!! I will fight to the end.
11/25/2013 - I wholeheartedly agree with numerous other Birch Communications complaints!!! They are one of the worst service providers I have ever had business dealings with. Not only do they provide SUB-STANDARD PHONE SERVICE, but THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS JUST AS BAD.
We have not had any improper billing practices as others noted. Our problems are STRICTLY SERVICE LEVEL PROBLEMS and APATHETIC Customer Service. Nobody acts like it is a big deal that our customers can not call us. There is ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE OF URGENCY in Birch Communications customer support, A TOTAL LACK OF RESPONSIVENESS!!!
We are an acquired customer to Birch through their acquisition of DayStar Communications in the Southwest Florida market. Ever since acquisition by Birch the QUALITY Of SERVICE has DIMINISHED GREATLY!!!
We purchase commercial phone service, approximately 10 lines, from Birch and frequently lose service. We are in the process of changing providers after the last month of substantially weekend outages with Birch. We signed up with DayStar to get rid of Verizon's incredibly high costs, system inflexibility and poor customer service. However, now that Birch has our account, the customer service is just as bad as Verizon, but now the service is worse.
Even though the bill is still less (and we also pay very timely), I assure you it is costing us A LOT MORE than what we are saving on the bill, in terms of lost customer service and customer calls as well as customer support for our Emergency Service Calls!!!!
I just had a service outage this past Sunday, 11/24/13, and had never called in for an outage on a Sunday before. They DID NOT HAVE ONE TECHNICAL SUPPORT EMPLOYEES WORKING on Sunday. They could not even transfer my lines to our answering service without placing a call to their On-Call technician, it took them 2 HOURS to get 5 of my lines successfully transferred!!! Seriously, no one ONSITE working! What does that tell you about their operation, both Size, Redundancy and Professionalism?!?!? This is not the telecom provider/CLEC you want to do business with!
They are a bad value and not worth the money you pay them!
SAVE YOUR BUSINESS, STAY AWAY FROM BIRCH COMMUNICATIONS!!!
Birch called me multiple times to try to sell their phone service to me. Constantly telling me how much cheaper it will be to swtich. Asked me to switch over two lines and continued to quote me 39.99 plus taxes, etc... for both lines. Got my first bill and just realized that I am paying more than what i was with AT&T, which is way more than I was quoted multiple times. Tried to call and get out of my contract only to be quoted a $1700 fee to do that. Also was not warned to look into my current contract with AT&T and got a contract termnation fee from them. I know this is not their job, but it would be nice for them to actually look out for their customer. So in the end swithing to Birch is going to cost me over a $1000.00 more then if I would have just stayed with AT&T. I would recommend to not even listen the sales pitch of Birch!
First of all, I did not choose Birch Comm. My account was sold to them when they bought out my previous internet provider. Their service is practically nonexistent. I had the pervious provider for 5 years and they were always able to work out most issues to my satisfaction and in a timely manner. I tried giving Birch time for transition. A good transition never took place. I have not had email access since they aquired my account and internet service was periodically provided at best. When you place a call for service the first thing you are told that if it is determinites not to be their fault; then you will be charged 139.00. So right off you know, you are most likely going to be paying them at least 139.00, to get your service up and running. I canceled service with them today after putting up with their poor,poor business practices. And I am very glad to be rid of this ineffective service provider.
Birch Communications Reviews
During my weekly visit with my 85 year old father to review mail and pay bills, he had welcome letter from Birch Communications. He asked me who it was. After reading I asked him if he had been contacted by someone about his phone service. He said no and that he was with ATT. I explained that according to the letter he was now with Birch. He had no memory of talking to anyone at Birch.
I called Birch and they told me that my father had agreed to switch his local and long distance phone service. He further told me that they had a recording of him agreeing to switch phone service providers. Again I asked my father if he had done so and he said no. I asked to hear the recording which was vauge. The part that was recorded was of someone asking my father for his name and address and to press #. There was also question which my father did not understand about change to phone service and press #.
When I explained that my father did not know what was going on or what the call was about I was told that it did not matter. He had agreed to switch service to Birch. It was futher explained to me that if he cancelled then he would be responsible for paying 1/2 the monthly total of $50 for the 36 month contract term which amounts to $900. As a 85 year old on a fixed income this is not possible! I was told that if I could produce a power of attorney then I could get the service teminiated.
What a sham! What a scam! Amazing you can establish a contract by phone but you can not cancel a bogus service. Fortunately I do have power of attorney. I will also be consulting with our attorney. In the meantime I have made sure that my father is on the DO NOT CALL list.
My warning to others is BEWARE! So many of our elderly are caught unaware of the scams and bogus sales that are out there. Now I have to spend additional time trying to get this resolved and get ATT of which there was NO contract back.
I was contacted by what I was told was AT&T calling me to offer me a discount on our AT&T bill. WRONG! It was Birch and they lied and did not say they were from Birch. There was a third party female screaming into the phone talking over the voice and I could not hear the questions. They are telling us we are in a three year contract and will have to pay $3000 to get out of the contract for early termination fees! They played the recording back to me and it most certainly is NOT the conversation I had...they have an male talking to me and there was distintcly a female screaming and telling me when to answer the questions and to just say yes! In speeaking with them today, the customer service representative I spoke with said she is the highest in the company that I can go! Run around, run around. Do not ever believe these people!!! I will fight to the end.
11/25/2013 - I wholeheartedly agree with numerous other Birch Communications complaints!!! They are one of the worst service providers I have ever had business dealings with. Not only do they provide SUB-STANDARD PHONE SERVICE, but THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS JUST AS BAD.
We have not had any improper billing practices as others noted. Our problems are STRICTLY SERVICE LEVEL PROBLEMS and APATHETIC Customer Service. Nobody acts like it is a big deal that our customers can not call us. There is ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE OF URGENCY in Birch Communications customer support, A TOTAL LACK OF RESPONSIVENESS!!!
We are an acquired customer to Birch through their acquisition of DayStar Communications in the Southwest Florida market. Ever since acquisition by Birch the QUALITY Of SERVICE has DIMINISHED GREATLY!!!
We purchase commercial phone service, approximately 10 lines, from Birch and frequently lose service. We are in the process of changing providers after the last month of substantially weekend outages with Birch. We signed up with DayStar to get rid of Verizon's incredibly high costs, system inflexibility and poor customer service. However, now that Birch has our account, the customer service is just as bad as Verizon, but now the service is worse.
Even though the bill is still less (and we also pay very timely), I assure you it is costing us A LOT MORE than what we are saving on the bill, in terms of lost customer service and customer calls as well as customer support for our Emergency Service Calls!!!!
I just had a service outage this past Sunday, 11/24/13, and had never called in for an outage on a Sunday before. They DID NOT HAVE ONE TECHNICAL SUPPORT EMPLOYEES WORKING on Sunday. They could not even transfer my lines to our answering service without placing a call to their On-Call technician, it took them 2 HOURS to get 5 of my lines successfully transferred!!! Seriously, no one ONSITE working! What does that tell you about their operation, both Size, Redundancy and Professionalism?!?!? This is not the telecom provider/CLEC you want to do business with!
They are a bad value and not worth the money you pay them!
SAVE YOUR BUSINESS, STAY AWAY FROM BIRCH COMMUNICATIONS!!!
Birch called me multiple times to try to sell their phone service to me. Constantly telling me how much cheaper it will be to swtich. Asked me to switch over two lines and continued to quote me 39.99 plus taxes, etc... for both lines. Got my first bill and just realized that I am paying more than what i was with AT&T, which is way more than I was quoted multiple times. Tried to call and get out of my contract only to be quoted a $1700 fee to do that. Also was not warned to look into my current contract with AT&T and got a contract termnation fee from them. I know this is not their job, but it would be nice for them to actually look out for their customer. So in the end swithing to Birch is going to cost me over a $1000.00 more then if I would have just stayed with AT&T. I would recommend to not even listen the sales pitch of Birch!
First of all, I did not choose Birch Comm. My account was sold to them when they bought out my previous internet provider. Their service is practically nonexistent. I had the pervious provider for 5 years and they were always able to work out most issues to my satisfaction and in a timely manner. I tried giving Birch time for transition. A good transition never took place. I have not had email access since they aquired my account and internet service was periodically provided at best. When you place a call for service the first thing you are told that if it is determinites not to be their fault; then you will be charged 139.00. So right off you know, you are most likely going to be paying them at least 139.00, to get your service up and running. I canceled service with them today after putting up with their poor,poor business practices. And I am very glad to be rid of this ineffective service provider.