Ancestry.com

Dan of Valders, WI November 7, 2009

Buyer beware they are out to get your money. I signed up for the 7 free day trial. I signed up for the monthly payment plan. What they don't tell you is that you don't get any free time unless you pay for the year service in advance nearly 200. You will find this in the small print under the disclaimer. I cancelled within four days and received notice immediately that I don't qualify for the free trial so I can continue to use their site until my month was up.

Feeling scammed I never logged in again, to find out three months later they were still billing my credit card for their monthly fee, when I called them they asked for the cancellation number which of course I didn't have because they never sent one to me. So they will not refund my money. Loss of money during hard financial times and the distress of dealing with scam artist.

Jerry of Folsom, CA October 15, 2009

I signed up for the trial and cancelled within 24 hours. I never received a cancellation notice on my email but I tried to log in a few days later and was not able to access the premium service. I believed this was because I had cancelled and that everything was okay. Ten months later my wife got curious about the charge and called them. The woman she spoke to said that the account had been cancelled but the billing had not. She said to resolve it I needed to call in and give them my information and credit card number.

I spoke with a Kimberly who was pleasant at first but once I asked for a refund she started getting louder and louder. I told her that she was getting really loud but she just continued telling me their policies. I asked to speak to a supervisor three times before she let me. I then spoke with William who was very calm and pleasant. I then told him about the woman my wife had talked to and what she had said. He said that my account had not been looked at by anyone that day.

I then told him that Kimberly had looked at it and knew my wifes name. He then said the account had been accessed twice, once by Kimberly and once by him. (It really didn't make sense to me than Kimberly would have known my wife's name even though it was never on the account. I do believe they, (William) lied to me (more than once but definatley that time).

I never received an email that the account had been activated and that I would now be billed nor did I receive an email each month about the billing as I should have. When I talked to Kimberly she knew my email and user name but when I talked to William he gave me a user name that I did not know about. I have a programmable keyboard and use a macro to enter my user name and password for everything I do. For some reason the user name Ancestry.com had for me was jumbled and letters were added. It was only three letters off or two, William spelled it different the second time he spelled it some 15 minutes later in the conversation.

Why out of three game accounts, Twitter, Facebook, Photobucket, four email accounts and about a dozen blogs and forums, Ancestry.com had a different user name than what my macro puts in makes no sense to me. And I log onto all those other accounts all the time and never have an issue.

I explained this to William and suggested they might have had a server glich or something that garbled the data once it was received. He said I should have asked for my user name. I told him I had cancelled and thought the reason I couldn't log on was because they had locked out the premium service to me. I would never have thought my user name was different. I also told him I had never used the service which he confirmed.

In the end they said they would refund the last three months. Still, this is a company that will activate your account and charge you and not send you an email about any of their billing. I also know I cancelled it and never received a cancellation email. I lost around 140.

Balarie of South Pasadena, CA October 3, 2009

Because of Ancestry.com exposure of my personal information on the internet, A job that I was certain to get failed. Ancestry.com exposes me , showing that I married a moslem, where he is from. I am devistated at the limitations put upon me as a private person. Ancestry.com has set limitations upon me as I attempt to network with a lot of people on the internet. And all of my efforts are stiffled.

Bruce of Peoria, AZ September 24, 2009

Received an offer from Ancestry.com for a free 14 day trial. Signed up for the service on around 6/15/09. To get the free trial you have to pick a service to continue with if you don't cancel within that period so I selected the monthly at 29.95/month. Used the service for around 11 days and then used the online options to cancel my account. At the time it irritated me that it gave me the message that I was beyond my 7 day trial period and that I would not be refunded my first monthly charge even though my trial was for 14 days and they were still advertising a 14 day trial for new members.

I wasn't in the mood to fight it at the time, and just let the one month charge go and cancelled. Now it is 3 months later and I just realized that they are still billing me 29.95 each month. Called their customer service and all they will do is refund the most recent monthly charge even though they can see through their system that I haven't used the service in 3 months. They won't do anything else unless I can give them the cancellation confirmation number from back in June which I don't have.

S of San Diego, CA August 7, 2009

I signed up for a one month membership at Ancestry.com and canceled the account online before the one month had ended. Canceling was a hassle but I found out how to do it using info I found online from other customers who had trouble canceling. I filled out the cancellation form online and I even filled out the part that told them why I was canceling (their system didn't find info on my family). I never received a confirmation email and now I can assume why. I figured the account was canceled but they kept charging me for 4 months until I noticed the charges.

They would not refund my money because I did not have the cancellation email. They could see that I never accessed the account after the day I canceled but that didn't matter. I eventually found one customer service person who was willing to refund a portion of the unauthorized charges, but not all of it. I would never use them again. Beware.

Barbara of Palmdale, CA July 24, 2009

Sign up on-line for a free one year trial on July 14, 2008, giving my credit card # to be charged 155.40 after the free trial service if I did not cancel. Initially, immediately after sign-up, I was able to access the website. However, the next time I tried to accesss the site, I needed a password, which I never received. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to gain access to the site to retrieve a password I gave up, putting it aside for another day. A family emergency prevented me from trying again until October of 2008. Again, no luck and I was not able to access anything. So, I decided it probably hadn't registered and I put it out of my mind, thinking I would check on it later. However, I never got back to it.

C of Charlotte, NC May 28, 2009

We bought nor subscribed to anything on Ancestrydotcom, but today found our credit card charged with over 200, then the same amount was refunded immediately. Apparently, they were just checking to see if the account was valid, because we immediately afterwards received a call from an online merchant saying someone was trying to buy an i-phone with the same card.

D of Dallas, TX May 8, 2009

Cancelled my service and was then billed. When asked about a refund was told I was 1 day into the billing cycle and so they would not refund.

Ken of Acme, AB April 15, 2009

Ken of Acme AB (04/15/09)
Same problem as others. Its part of their business plan to charge your credit card and never send an invoice or a receipt just to keep you money. Do not use this company!!

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