A BriggsReviews of abriggs.com

Before buyout a trustworthy company. After, too many hidden fees offered almost as an afterthought (one $25. fee written in light grey typeface almost impossible to see... but even if checked, they charge you anyway). I used the company for many years. During the last two uses I have been scammed by them..... twice. I'm done.

First problem was they wanted to process my application for a tourist visa as a business visa and put a "due date" ten days after what I had requested. Website says fees "start" at $90, but since I wasn't applying for expedited service, I didn't see the fine print that said I had to opt out of a $25.00 "Passport Replacement Fee" in case they lost my passport! They also charged another $25.00 for a "Brazilian upload Surcharge" after I had completed the application online, printed it out, signed it, and mailed it to them. There was also a 4% "Consular Processing fee." Add $10.00 for a money order which costs $1.25 at the post office and which other services ask you to mail in with your application, but which Briggs/CIBT does not include in their requested documents. Their communication protocol is horrid. You must call a central office and wait for them to get around to contacting someone in the office actually handling your application. (Emails also go through a central screening.) That may take 2-3 days. One morning I called and the person answering said they had heavy volume and that I had to leave my name and number and I would get a call back. I did not get a call back until two days later. You cannot call and expect to be connected to the person actually handling your visa.

What A Briggs used to get completed in less than 3 days takes CIBT a minimum of 5 days and at a higher cost! I have used A Briggs for nearly 2 years. Now that A Briggs has been bought out by CIBT, the entire experience has drastically changed for the worse!! CIBT is total corporate bureaucracy with slow turnaround times, high fees that are not fully disclosed upfront, and extremely poor customer service! I have never seen a company that wants your credit card number upfront without disclosing the total cost of services to be rendered!! BEWARE!! Thanks to flippant customer service agents that are only robots reading off a computer screen, I will have to find another Visa service for all my business travel. Thanks for wasting my time CIBT and still not getting me a travel visa!

Abriggs made applying for a visa as painless as possible. We had a meeting with them where they told us all we would need. We chose to pay extra to have the process expedited, which was worth it. We got our visa as soon as it was possible. Highly recommend!

I was in a crunch to get my Brazilian Visa (leaving in less than a month) and A Briggs provided the fastest turnaround through their expedited service. I even received the passport faster than expected and had no issues with the visa when I arrived in Brazil.

Expensive service, but got the visa in a quick time frame. Only issue was that there was trouble with the application, and although I called and left a VM for them, no one responded to my questions. That was very concering to not get a response after giving away my credit card information.

I've used A Briggs for several years now, and recommend them to all my associates. There are cheaper ways to get passports and visas, but no better ways, at least that I have found. The A Briggs website works great, and takes the mystery out of what can otherwise often be a confusing process.

I was completely happy with the service I received at Abriggs and would recommend Abriggs to my friends and family.