note: This is an amendment on July 10th, 2011. It appears this post receives a lot of traffic, according to my Google Analytics for the search [cbeyond scam]. I have no interest curbing Cbeyond’s sales if you are reading this post and considering their services. The truth is, this is MY story, and this story is likely to happen with almost any company when the wrong people are managing and herding the wrong sheep. I just received a great response today from a what seems like a very intelligent, respectful representative from this company, Karolina Rodrigues. At the end of the day, that’s what this story is about. Please read Karolina’s post at the bottom of this blog post. And then make your own judgment on this company and who you are dealing with.
—————————–(originally published March 3rd, 2010)
ahhh, well sometimes customer service doesn’t really mean that the service department is there to service the customer. Perhaps it means who we can frustrate today, because we control you, we have you in a contract and we really don’t care about you.
Well, after numerous hours dealing with problems that have affected my business in a negative way, I’m breathing with a sigh of relieve today as AT&T and Comcast have taken over my communications again. I don’t know if it’s the worst of two evils, but buy am I happy.
You see, CBeyond is a regional telecom provider who bundles wireless, T1′s, analogue lines and other services under one umbrella for small businesses. You need 6 lines to join them and they are positioned well to accommodate small businesses with up to about 50 lines. They drop an AT&T T1 into your office and you use voice channels over that connection. Old, old technology, but they are solid (T1).
Is this business a scam?
I know, this has NOTHING to do with Internet Marketing, or so it seems. It’s about what we’re calling a Cbeyond Scam. Nah, it’s likely not a scam, but perhaps very poor service. I’m reading a book right now called “The Search” by John Battelle. It’s worth the read. It’s about how Google and their rivals have changed the dynamics of business. It’s true. What has changed today, the last couple of years, consumers have the power again. Single handedly people have shifted and moved companies because we are heard on the Internet.
We are not heard in Customer Service Departments anymore.
Check out this pissed consumer. or this one. or this one. or this one. Heck, search for it here!
So, I know in my past I complained about Comcast on Twitter. Did you know Comcast has a department that monitors Twitter and they sent me an unpublished phone number. When I asked for two free months from home service, they did better, gave me two free months on two services! Way to go Comcast. I don’t like how you couldn’t make me happy in the customer service department, but I’m glad you listened when you saw me screaming on the Internet.
So, this post, eh? Well, let’s see. I’m an Internet Marketer. I know how to get this post to rank very high in Google with the right trust and authority. Nah, there is no promotion on this post at all…well maybe a tweet or two and some internal linking on this blog. But we get page #1, for the #4 drop down keyword when you start typing the business name. They might not have listened to my problems the two years they got my money, but people are listening….for ever.
I want all prospective CBeyond customers to find this post and hear my story.
I can’t tell you how many of my entrepreneur friends dislike Cbeyond. Let’s start with some of my fellow chamber of commerce members.
It started a month after we got installed, a new sales persons comes in trying to sell me. Then a month later. and a few more months. I witnessed eight (yes 
different sales people try to sell me communication services, while I was a customer in a two year period!
This tells me this company is sales focused, not customer focus. Get your sales shit together and walk in and ask me how I’m doing as a customer, since you take $1200 of my fucken money every month. Don’t try and sell me something, when obviously I don’t need it.
Each and every time, the sales rep apologized, took no accountability and offered to listen to my other problems. They listened, promised a phone call back and of course, never got a call. Never.
When I would ask about their prices of their T1, and how they were 5x time the price of Comcast, it was the same canned response.
“T1 is a more stable connection, it’s a much better connection”.
OK, granted a T1 is a 24 channel copper connection directly to the Central office and it’s 100% dedicated, not shared. OK, sounds good. Cable Internet is shared, not dedicated and runs over a network with other data. Sure, it’s not as stable.
T1 speeds are 1.5 megabits per second each way, synchronize. Cable does not guarantee speeds.
This is where their moronic sales team is completely self serving.
I respond indicating that the ‘features’ do not translate into benefits to my business. In fact, even though Cable is shared, in the 10 years I’ve used cable and seen the speed dramatically increase, I have NEVER gotten speeds as slow as a T1. We could barely stream media with today’s small business requirements.
Cable’s speeds you ask? Today Comcast is delivering 27 mbps download and 14 mbps upload. Yes, that’s almost 20 times faster than CBeyond! Comcast’s network was stable last year, with like, uhm, 99.999% uptime. CBeyond rely’s on someone else’s network. They (AT&T) claimed the same uptime.
So, Mr. or Mrs. CBeyond Sales rep, the ‘benefit’ is what impacts my business. I’m sorry, being a multimedia firm, faster speeds means great productivity for my team members.
And their Wireless Solutions. They piggy back off of Sprint. They offer solutions to business, but don’t offer a product that (wireless phone) that runs any decent web 2.0 apps. Nothing touchscreen. No plans. Crap. They are WAY behind the times with their wireless solutions. You can’t even set up conditional call forwarding with their system. Folks, Google that, it’s a standard in North America and this cheap company didn’t invest in these features for their operations. Sprint offers it, they should be able to.
How am I suppose to run and build a leading edge small business with partners who don’t invest into new technology.
Oh, ever heard of Google Voice? Google is removing control of all the carriers and putting it into the hands of consumers. Forget it with CBeyond scam! You can’t use Google Voice with CBeyond.
Billing – ahhhh, paying the bill. One time we got disconnected for failure to pay. It was my fault two years ago. I left town and never gave instructions to take care of the bill. Ten days after the bill was due, my Internet, telephone and wireless phones all shut down. Apparently they sent a letter to the office, but never called, provided alternatives or anything. My business shut down for a few hours, while I was borrowing a friends cell phone. I paid the $1200 bill right away and took responsibility for this one.
Contracts. Mr. Gallagher, it’s not a problem to cancel during your 13th and 25th month. WTF? I was blatantly lied to by one of the manipulative sales people. Yeah, you can cancel if you provide written notice during the tiny window they provide you, you pay for the installation and you pay your buyout plus the money they paid to buy me out from AT&T initially. CBeyond Scam?
This was the final straw
We were getting frustrated. So we begun to ‘check’ out AT&T and Comcast’s pricing. OMG, now we are saving over 50% every single month. We went with Verizon for wireless….I wanted an Android phone 
CBeyond said they would match their competitor’s price if we produced a proposal. We did. They declined to commit their verbal agreement. They said they can’t match that price because Comcast doesn’t provide the same quality of service, their Internet is cable, ours is a T1.
Crap, here again eh? Bottom line, by my last account, Comcast does better for my business. A fucken BMW 5 series costs more than my Ford F-150 and is a better design, but that F-150 hauls and hits the gravel roads much better when you need to move timber. CBeyond Scam?
Folks, it’s benefits, not features. Didn’t they teach you that in sales 101 Mr. CBeyond Sales Manager? Maybe CBeyond’s executive staff needs a better sales manager.
Anyhow, they didn’t care about me. Really, at the end of the day I was looking for about $200 price reduction, to be
exactly inline with an AT&T and Comcast combo. They failed and lost my business. I realized had I been given that price, I’d still have worst technology with less benefits when considering their wireless solutions and service levels. CBeyond Scam?
Do yourself a favor, stay clear of this company.
Want more?
Check out the shear volume of results for [CBeyond Sucks] (lots of pages in Google’s index WOW!!!!)
Go to Google and start typing in CBeyond…notice the autofill from Google? [CBeyond Scam] is #4. This should tell you more.
UPDATE: March 18, 2010.
I have to give credit where credit is due. Turns out a Director from CBeyond contacted me directly, as a result from this post. Not customer service, not my sales rep, but a director. She didn’t offer an ounce of rebutting my concerns and listened. I give her credit.
We were still having problems the day of this phone call with CBeyond, they were not releasing out numbers in a timely manner and cost us several days of not having a wireless phone. Verizon was very confused, the numbers seemed 1/2 way released.
This wonderful director from CBeyond said that she would walk to that department and ensure it’s done. Not more than several minutes later, the Verizon phones were working and she followed up to ensure this was done.
I have to give credit to CBeyond. They are still a young company and experiencing growth. It is VERY impressive that they are listening and trying to correct the problems. She was well aware of my problems and indicated that they have already made changes. Unfortunately in this case, it was just too late to stand up listen.
So is this a CBeyond Scam? That’s for you to decide. I’ve chalked it up as a great business experience…how to not run your business!
UPDATE: Jan 2011
I was just checking my analytics log and found A LOT of traffic to my blog for the keyword [CBeyond Scam]. I thought, let’s check this company out. Turns out 95% of all user generated content is negative reviews on this company. I can’t believe it. Really. Anyhow, this isn’t right and judging by volume of traffic I’ve received, I know without a doubt I’ve contributed in curbing their revenue. I mean, they cost me money and time, took no accountability UNTIL I left and obviously never listen to their customers. Geesh, goes against everything I teach in business….so this is an excellent case study! I really would be concerned if I were an employee seeing all this crap on the Internet. Here’s a great Yelp page on CBeyond. A lot of negative stuff…….oh, BTW….according to YELP, 85% of all their reviews are positive….funny that CBeyond doesn’t have one! LOL. YELPers like to leave positive reviews….but not this company!
Three Things You Didn’t Know About Negative Reviews
1. Most reviews on Yelp are actually positive — about 85% are 3 stars or above. In fact, this is pretty consistent across the Internet: when people share information about an experience or product, it’s often because they’re happy.
To CBeyond
You better learn some Online Reputation Management. Yeah, we can fix all this online for you, in fact I’ll help. But first, I demand you fix your internal problems first and we can make you look all nice and pretty online. Seems all the problems I had are very common around the country.
9 comments
Jacob Thomas says:
November 5, 2010 at 4:09 pm (UTC 0 )
Hi Scott,
I signed up with Cbeyond about 2 months ago and was told I would get faster speeds than AT&T DSL; I am lucky if I get webpages to load faster than the 3G speed on my cellphone with the Cbeyond T1 service.
I am trying to get out of my contract and am being told that I will have to pay $6,000.00 to be able to do that. Do you have any advice for me as far as getting out of the contract with minimum financial damage?
I guess I might have to start my own blog and try to do some link-building.
Sincerely,
Jacob Thomas
Rob says:
May 18, 2011 at 8:39 am (UTC 0 )
By the way, I know this is an old article but you may want to look back in to Cbeyond when your contract expires with your current carriers. They now offer a new technology known as Ethernet first mile or metro Ethernet that can offer speeds as high as 10mb up/down. This is still on a dedicated connection as well. Also, there is an innovative technology known as wireless backup which automatically falls over to a 3G connection should lines to your business fail for any reason. If your business relies on the Internet to function there really is no better solution as physical problems (cut lines, weather issues, etc) can and will happen with any provider.
Also, conditional call forwarding is available and always has been. You simply need to call to activate it.
Another issue with your post: Cbeyond does NOT in any way use at&t, verizon or Qwests network. They have their own equipment at the central office and their own network. The only thing that isn’t theirs is the physical T-1 line which is owned by the ILEC because the federal government paid for them before deregulation. The ILEC is required by law to provide these to Cbeyond at cost and is required by law to fix them should they ever be disconnected.
By the way Scott. All of these new features were added because of customer requests. Not sure how you arrived at the conclusion that Cbeyond doesn’t listen but I think it’s pretty off base. I don’t have to tell you this but the squeaky wheel always gets the grease and I doubt if many of our over 70000+ come to online blogs (or yelp) to comment on the Internet and phones working. Telecom isn’t an area that tends to make a lot of fanatics (although we are now making that our focus) it generally either works… Or people complain – sometimes very loudly.
scott says:
May 20, 2011 at 9:57 am (UTC 0 )
Rob. thank you for your message. Unfortunately Cbeyond didn’t listen soon enough, and besides, implementing last mile ethernet is still old data technology running over a dated network. Fiber is where you should be, because 10mb up and down is very slow, when businesses are using media channels and massive video file sizes. Comcast offers 100MB.
In any event, a simple search for CBeyond demonstrate the clear lack of online reputation management and this search shows a massive amount of frustrated customers. Just go Google your company’s name.
Karolina Rodrigues says:
July 7, 2011 at 4:56 pm (UTC 0 )
Hi Scott,
I read over your blog because as a sales consultant who has been with Cbeyond for about a year and a half, online reviews are definitely something I have to face on a regular basis. Of everything I’ve read, it seems that 90% at least have a poor sales rep at the root of the problem. We have 56,000 customers nationwide and 30-40% of our business is from referrals, so yes, there are a lot of happy ones out there, but all it takes is one retard salesperson who makes it in with the company for 2 months before he’s fired, manages to set the wrong expectations and you have a very pissed off consumer ready to rant online. If it happened to me I probably would too.
I wouldn’t recommend a T1 over cable for a company that has high data streaming needs unless of course they were getting the 10MB, or they needed a constant dedicated, SYMMETRICAL connection, and with good ping. If T1′s were that horrible, gamers wouldn’t love them so much, and Internet cafes wouldn’t be using them. Also, from what I’ve been told cable is only available in something like 30-40% of business areas. Finally, T1′s even without Ethernet are adequate for most small businesses, unless what you really want is for your employees to be streaming movies on your time.
As for the 8 new reps who didn’t know you were a customer, I do apologize for that, I know currently I have access on my blackberry to our database, I can do a vicinity search to check for current customers, and I pretty much know who they are all anyway, because I’ve been in my territory over a year. Keeping people in their territories for longer periods is something they’ve been doing for at least a year, and doing more to attract and keep tenured reps has also been a focus, given the serious consequences of inexperienced reps for the reputation and image of the company.
Anyway, hope you are doing well in your business, and please keep in mind that there are a lot of good reps out there with a lot of satisfied customers.
Sincerely,
Karolina Rodrigues
Cbeyond
Sales Consultant
scott says:
July 10, 2011 at 2:52 pm (UTC 0 )
now this is likely the best most intelligent respectful honest reply I’ve heard from this company. It’s true, businesses make mistakes, thanks Karolina for admitting the obvious about Cbeyond. Thank you for explicitly supporting a honest, value-added opinion about a T1. There surely is a massive need for the stability of a T1 coupled with voice channels. This country is built on this telecommunication infrastructure that now business require a hybrid of data and voice. I surely don’t have that need of voice communication or your data solution, but there are millions of businesses that do, and Cbeyond seems to fit those companies well. You make a great supportive point for the company you represent.
I don’t doubt there are some incredible reps at Cbeyond, and many brilliant minds, several emerging and growing their career. I know the 80/20 rule exists everywhere, I guess I just got frustrated with the sheep. Let’s face it, Cbeyond is still around and growing, something is being done right. I just happen to showcase and experience several wrongs.
My business interest and requirements are not a fit for Cbeyond. Providing that your company shares your spirit, intelligence, dedication and loyalty, your company is on a good track with the right target audience, which is much larger than companies that share my requirements.
I would caution businesses considering Cbeyond to ensure you’re dealing with a rep and contact that truly takes the time to understand your business and provides the right solutions for you, not for their own sales interest. If the contract doesn’t feel right in your gut, don’t do it. Dealing with someone like Karolina, who clearly took the time to understand my position and needs, recognizes what’s best for someone’s needs, is the type of person you want to do business with. A sales rep takes care of their customers, it appears on Karolina’s profile she’s been with Cbeyond for well over a year. Before dealing with her, ask to speak to a customer of her’st. I suspect with her you’ll get a raving review of Cbeyond, and for that reason alone, is why I’d become a Cbeyond customer again if my needs changed.
alive and well. says:
July 13, 2011 at 12:29 pm (UTC 0 )
I was an ex-”Cbeyonder” I can tell you that I was switched out of my territory 4 times since I was there for 7 months. So 1 territory per year is pretty much untrue. However, with regards to your online vicinity search; it would have been nice if it worked. I had an open troubleshoot ticket for over 5 months,ever since I started working at Cbeyond. If they cannot address problems internally, how do you expect them to service customers. Countless times my customers would go down, and since I promised them I would be there every step of the way… Keeping in touch with our customers was non existent; when I tried to email proposals and even to prospect new clients, we were scolded and told to move on to the next opportunity. “They told us the sales cycle is very short”. How can you expect the sales cycle to be within 3 days if you are signing a contract that is 3 years long with over 18000$ cancellations on the low end. That is retarded. Low and behold my manager would scold me for helping them. The one that actually directed me to make that promise so we wouldn’t lose the deal. Countless times we cold-called, and if I was “defeated” in a door; he would tell me to go back in and harass till them we got kicked out because I was too “soft”. HR was a SHAM as well.I had actually had to file 4 different disputes for my commissions and monies owed to me. Disputing a dispute gets pretty ridiculous ( if you are in sales, and your not getting paid… is there really any incentive to sell?) When HR is one of the most important parts of an organization; our HR manager was out fornicating/mingling with the sales consultants. TALK about unprofessional. I suffer from ADHD with doctor diagnosis of it; when I ran out of my medications and needed to refill them for work they never accommodated for my needs. Other managers would actually make jokes about me unnecessarily shaking my legs or being restless. Obviously these were my symptoms of ADHD, and they would all just laugh. I AM SO HAPPY TO FINALLY LEAVE THIS TERRIBLE ORGANIZATION. Since then I have called all of my customers and have apologized to them. This rant is a very disorganized; just ranting all of my horrendous experiences.
David says:
August 23, 2011 at 3:06 pm (UTC 0 )
I was recently contacted someone claiming to be a “broker” selling voice/data communications; I could get T1 service offering better quality at lower costs (including new equipment). As it turns out, the broker was a cbeyond sales rep, a total misrepresentation. Further, the written contract contradicted a number of verbal assurances made by the rep, not a surprise at this point. Oh yeah, the business card indicated “national sales leader”. Should I assume this is false also or a well greased, I mean seasoned rep?
When any business transactions go smooth (as we all hope they do), then life is good and everyone is content. Certainly a large part of Cbeyond business does go smooth, given their size. However, I find that when a problem(s) does occur, it reveals the weaknesses of the process, (the weaknesses of management). From what I’ve read, there are a lot of weaknesses that I’m not willing to risk subjecting my company to for little, if any savings. I’m not confident that a director, relegated to damage control, is a positive sign. There is, however, considerable bad press online in need of repair.
Needless to say, I will not be signing up with cbeyond anytime soon.
Carol says:
October 6, 2011 at 10:12 pm (UTC 0 )
Wow! Wish we would have realized, about cbeyond. We wanted our service cancelled the day after it was installed. Now 6 months later we owe $14,000!! Nice we only had phone and Internet service, and we owe that much…now what do we do? They also have our business phone number and won’t release it! It’s criminal!
Any suggestions????
Sonya says:
November 1, 2011 at 5:08 pm (UTC 0 )
Our company was also recently contacted by a third party telecommunications sales consultant. Keep in mind, this person does not work for Cbeyond, nor pushed Cbeyond as the carrier to go to. However, after weeks of extensive number crunching, multiple carrier comparisons, and weighing in taxes, contract terms, early termination penalties, and such, Cbeyond came out greatly ahead on pricing.
My third party sales consultant was upfront and honest with me every step of the way. Cbeyond even went out of their comfort zone to offer us contract addendums to offset or negate any early termination issues. The price was outstanding for what we needed and fit right in with our small business model. Considering most of the negative reviews I have seen pertain to customers unable to get out of contract or having to pay ungodly fees, I believe most of these people simply didn’t look into the terms or alternate options to early termination.
Now, after having said all that, I spent a great deal of time putting together this proposal for my supervisor. My third party consultant also spent a great deal of time with Cbeyond to get us down to the great offer and working in the contract addendums. Everything looked great at this point. The supervisor was on board, and even went as far to sign most of the contract. By the time the last page of the contract addendum was forwarded for us to sign, my supervisor had been looking at online reviews… all that time spent went to absolutely nothing simply because of online posts such as this “Cbeyond Scam”.
Scott – I appreciate your opinion and honest recap of your experience. It’s unfortunate that you had such a bad experience that you were able to get “Cbeyond Scam” on the Google drop down menu. Maybe reviews such as yours saved us some headache… but it is also unfortunate that Cbeyond did not even get the chance to prove their services to us. I agree with above post in that Cbeyond may have some weakness in management and a great disconnect between sales reps and actual service. Cbeyond may have matured since some of these posts, but as David said, their bad press online needs to be addressed if they wish to continue selling themselves as a sufficient carrier.
It would be nice to see more satisfied customers post their experiences to give doubters an offset to Cbeyond’s bad rep online. I’m not saying we will never switch to Cbeyond, but they need help in providing a satisfied customer base to encourage possible future customers.
Thanks all for your input.