Ancestry Reviews

I signed up for a trial around December, and like many others have described, they automatically rolled me over into a paid membership in January. That's fine; I knew it would happen. But in May, I had a problem with my credit card and had to scrap it and get a new one issued with a new number and everything. Ancestry kept e-mailing me and being like, "We're going to have to cancel your account if you don't update your payment information", to which I thought good riddance because I never really wanted a paid subscription anyway. But then magically, the same day that I added my new credit card number to my PayPal account, Ancestry charged me for another month and when I logged into my account, I saw that they had my new credit card information. I never gave it to them, and I assumed they were in bed with PayPal and got my info from them.

In past have had difficulty getting access to services on occasion. NOW in the last five days it has been impossible to get beyond sign in....don't understand problem but have paid for this service AND WANT IT TO WORK!

I just discovered that when you enroll for the "trial": for ancestry.com it rolls over to a permanent, billable account at the end of the trial with no action on my part. Seems my lack of action got me enrolled automatically. Unfortunate that they do not have confidence in their product to gain new customers from the quality of their service. I've been paying for 8 months for services I didn't use. My husband and I had been providing 24/7 care for his 92-year-old father for the past 3 years and that schedule was critical for the past year. He died in March of this year. Listening to his stories made me curious to check out Ancestry.com with the trial period. Now that I have time to do my research of family members I will definitely NOT be using Ancestry.com. I will try to find an honest company.

It seems not a week goes by without having problems with Ancestry.com. I understand the DDoS and why that caused problems. But... most everything seems to be working except for one niggling problem. When in my Tree at Ancestry and trying to add a "Story", after choosing a title, there's no place to type/paste the story. Just a blank area on the page. If I click to add, the error message pops up telling me that I must add the text; however, there's still no place to click and type/paste. Please fix it!

I have been a member of Ancestry.com for many years and have, over this period of time, paid a lot of money for my membership ($300/yr for full access here and abroad in 2013). The genealogy research tool is very good and I've been able to created two large family Trees, complete with photos and stories. That said, Ancestry tells membership includes inviting people to become members of their Family Tree and that the service will send emails to Tree members when new data/photos are uploaded to a Family Tree.

I know that Ancestry.com owns Genealogy.com and the genforum site is down for some reason or has been removed all together. I went to search a specific surname forum and no website now. Ancestry is dominating the best genealogy sites and I am sick of it. I will never subscribe to a membership again. Shame on you Ancestry!!!

I have not been able to download GEDCOM files for several days. This is of critical importance because Ancestry has lost my entire tree three times and I use the GEDCOM files to rebuild what they have lost.

I submitted my credit number to ancestry.com. Their response was that the site was unavailable. I feel ripped off. Can you help me?

I have been a paying subscriber for many years. For at least a week, I am unable to do the smallest tasks including downloading my gedcom. Looking for a better site now.

In the 10 days (not to be confused with the recent attack) I have called Ancestry for FTM help four times. Have been a member for a decade and problems were minor. Major snafus now. My FTM will not connect with Ancestry. In fact when I click a leaf, it goes to search and all the things that were in there are gone. Try to add Ancestry and no dice. Try to log in to FTM and there is a refusal. In the calls the Customer Service people are NOT IT people and they are clueless. I was told twice (and sent the same e-mail) to clean cookies, optimize, check browsers etc. Brand new DELL in April; everything up to date. Last thing I was told was the change the MAINFRAME! I was sent an out of date "fix" not for windows 8. MY IT man came today and said NEVER to do that. He cannot fix the problems & has been in business for decades. Of course he had to be paid, but no success. If an "expert" IT person in the business can't solve the problem, how can amateurs?

I have had Ancestry.com for at least five years. I am getting very frustrated that I am unable to get on and get the necessary documents that I need. I have an assignment that I have been trying to do for a family reunion and it has been down for me... at least 4 days. I am thinking I may need to cancel my service and go to other databases and find other ways to get my information. I would expect that there should be some refund for the outage time. You cannot continue to treat customers badly by not responding to complaints. This is not the first time. We already pay outrageous prices for a service that works slowly and is not up to par.

For months Ancestry has been telling me when I call for help that it's still not optimized for Internet Explorer 11. What's the level of expertise of their coders? Were they formerly working on ignition keys for GM? I never had these problems with Ancestry 2012.

Selling out to a large corporation was their 1st mistake. The company obviously has no interest in genealogy - it's all about how much they can gouge out of everyone's pocket book. The fee of $189/yr for the American package is ridiculous for most on any kind of a fixed income. Then there is their latest EPIC FAIL called New Search. I've seen 1st year programming students write better search engines. I read Ancestry.com was going to give everyone a free month for the outage; however, my membership expired at midnight and I'm locked out. This company has turned into a monster and it is truly hurting all who work on genealogy and will undoubtedly force many to stop working on their trees altogether. Shame on Ancestry.com and the parent holding company!

The current service outage that is entering its 5th day in Michigan is just the latest in a long line of problems with Ancestry.com. Outages, Slow search responses/results, Long wait times on the phone (hours), Nonsensical search responses/results, Upgrading features that were working well, so they don't work at all (i.e. Fixing what isn't broken!) And, most galling, a company policy that refuses to compensate customers for lost service. (Even they hated cable companies refund for lost service!!) It's become too much. Time to look elsewhere in the family research world.

I have been a member of Ancestry.com.uk for a little while now and I've just paid for 1 month membership to research my family tree. Ever since the site has been up and down. Sometimes it works but is extremely slow and other times I just cannot get on the site at all. For 12.95 per month I'm wasting time and money, it's very disappointing and their policy is not to compensate for lost time. This is absolutely disgraceful because it is through no fault of our own that their site is down all the time! 12.95 may not sounds like a lot of money but that isn't the point. I've paid for a service and I expect to receive it 100%. If this keeps happening I'm going to have to re-think which site I research my family tree from.

It has been out for 2 days - does anyone know when it will be fixed?

This recent outrage if you want to call it that is just another in a long line of issues with the Ancestry and Family Tree Maker. You would think that after all of this time and the number of issues they might think about getting some new programmers. I am so used to the many issues, slow operation and the crashing, it all seems normal. If and when it actually works for awhile, it is amazing but it doesn't last long.

I have been a member, on and off, for years and have never encountered major problems with their website until the last 9 months or so. The site is slow to respond and as of now, it's been down for over a day. This is the second time this has happened on my membership. My time is money and I lost a day of research because I was told their policy is not to compensate for down time. I think they need to rethink that policy and AUTOMATICALLY provide compensation time to members based on down time without making 3, 4 or 5 phone calls (wasting another hour or more). Familysearch.com often has more info for me than this site. I'm done with ancestry.com.

As a customer of Ancestry.com for several years, it is my impression that the quality of the service is going downhill! Access appears to get slower and slower (and yes, I've cleaned out the cache files, and taken other steps to remove or delete anything that might be slowing down access to their site), while access to other websites is almost instantaneous. Several times recently, I have been unable to access the site for hours if not a day. Today, I cannot get in at all! I keep getting error messages from GOOGLE that web page is not available. Ancestry has a lot of records available to a person doing family research, I realize things can and do go wrong! BUT like many other users, I personally believe they are deteriorating day-by-day!

We purchased the 2014 Version of FTM believing that Ancestry.com had overcome the sync problems experienced with FTM 2012 enabling one to keep info stored on the PC in sync with that on Ancestry.com Web Site. From what I have read on various sites including Ancestry's own site, we are not the only customers frustrated with not only the ongoing problems associated with this product but the Company's inability for their 'Help Support Team' to address and ratify said problems. To give Ancestry a score of 2 out of 10 for this Product and their Help Support Team - would in my humble opinion be extremely generous one. Other software companies would not release such a product without first overcoming the numerous 'glitches' relating to FTM 2014.

I get set up to do my research and have everything in front of me ready to go then after I log in and get past the screens that pop up begging me to upgrade my account. The site goes down. It's been down now for over an hour. We should be credited for their incompetence.

June 17, 2014. For the past six months Ancestry.com has had more and more glitches. For instance, I've asked individuals to be a "Guest" and look at my Family Tree. However, recently Ancestry.com has sent me messages asking me to Leave Page or Continue. When I click to Continue, it only lasts a few seconds before another "Leave Page or Continue" message appears. And many times when I've tried to look at something on the screen, Ancestry.com gives "Whoops!!!" messages, saying that they have not completed it yet. Another thing that is upsetting is trying to look at the latest "messages" on the message board. Frequently, there are boards with a hundred or so messages that begin in 1998 and there is no way to look at the last messages first and then work backwards. In some cases you can, but most of the time you can't. Also, there is a constant message on the Family Tree that says they are experiencing technical difficulties and it's possible I won't be able to get to my Family Tree. Sure enough, they're right!!

I find that Ancestry is frequently slow even when all other sites I visit are not slow. Ancestry has problems far too often, there are many times when the site is only partially operational or not working at all.

I have had a subscription since Ancestry began and each update has been worse than the last. I now cannot find information that I know that was there before. You put exact and it still gives you information that has nothing to do with your search. My best friend’s nephew worked at Ancestry and he told us that the people that were doing the extractions were in Uganda, and we wonder why we cannot find anything in the search. Today you cannot even get online. I pay 300 a year and for a while it was great but not now.

I've used the site for most of the last two years and every time they "upgrade" it, it gets worse. I've had to log in as many as 10 times to complete one search because the site keeps kicking me out. Their remedy is to tell me to use a different browser and to empty my browser cache. Duh. I don't call until the normal things are done. They should just admit the site has bugs and refund money. My subscription is due to expire and I won't renew it. I'd recommend, if you want to build a family tree, to use Wiki or Geni and if you must use Ancestry.com to locate census records, go to to your public library and use it for free. And take some Excedrin with you because Ancestry.com is sure to give you a headache.

Website is down while support line is in a mess with repeating messages about the excellent work that can be had while researching you family tree. Not such great service. A paid website should NEVER be down! EVER! I am never late on my monthly fee; ok Ancestry, you aren't upholding your side of the deal!

After 10+ years as an ancestry.com subscriber, I cancelled. The company has recently changed the search engine and it is far less accurate than the previous search. In the last few months, I was able to find information on other genealogy search sites within the first 10 results that did not show up within the first 100 results on ancestry.com. As requested by ancestry.com, I forwarded information regarding numerous failures (with weblinks and screenshots) and no changes were ever made.

I called Ancestry.com re doing a DNA run on my 3 1/2 year old son. Was told test to collect sample was "VERY EASY". After spending $100.00 dollars, I received the Kit. But the Kit requires close to two TABLESPOONS WORTH OF SALIVA!!!! Have you ever tried getting a simple drop of Saliva from a toddler? Being a Doctor, I can tell you this is not possible. I immediately called their customer service. Explained what I was told when I had called and inquired regarding the DNA test Kit and was left (they omitted) believing it was a simple CHEEK SWAB. I asked for my money back and shipping container. They said "Sorry For Your Luck. We will only give back $74.00 due to a restocking fee." So even though, they on purpose miss-represented the Test Kit, they simply play the role of Pontius Pilate and washed their hands of their miss-representation at my expense. I now see in various blogs they are a big rip-off group of charlatans practicing quackery.

I have to agree with many of the complaints that have been voiced here already. They have billed my account for 3 months even though I didn't use the service. I was under the impression that I had only signed up for a month subscription but I was wrong. I guess I didn't read the fine print. I would never recommend this service to anyone! Their customer service needs a lot of work!! Major disappointment!

They charge your credit card for a subscription even when you don't want to automatically renew and when you call to cancel when you see yet another charge come through your account, you have a short limited time to catch it. Even if you cancel, they won't give you a refund for the 6 months of "membership" that you had already canceled. I said I would be disputing this payment with my credit card co and they said "go ahead, this is what you had agreed to by signing up." Too bad - So sad. I guess I must have missed the "fine" print. I will never use this service again and I will tell others - BEWARE!!!

The website was vague about upgrading a membership and ability to cancel, and was intentionally misleading. I upgraded my US membership (in good faith) to a (useless) World Membership. Ancestry.com has refused any refund even though the membership was cancelled well within the 30 day cancellation period. They said that by upgrading my one month membership that I added another month to my membership and therefore cannot get a refund. It's not a lot of money, but just based on principle I have disputed the charges with American Express and have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

If you do not cancel your trial period subscription BEFORE they renew it, beware as they will NOT refund any additional charges. They post to your credit card once they automatically renew your subscription. In my case, they charged $99 for six months. Even if you call to cancel after you notice the charge on your account, they WILL not refund any of the future months. BEST ADVICE is do NOT even sign up for TRIAL period. I never saw any benefit to becoming a member than what they offer as FREE. The site often froze when I tried to access it. They will automatically continue to charge your credit card.

Used a "free" trial yesterday, got charged. Spoke to some rude ** on the phone who said it's normal to be charged for stuff to see if the credit card is legitimate, and that the fee should be returned. It's not but whatever is was a little over a dollar. I told a supervisor about my experience and that was alright. Found out that my credit card information is still being stored by them. Tried to remove it myself, didn't work. So I called again. Got the same ** who served me last time. He told me that it's perfectly fine to leave all my credit card information with the company even though I don't use their services (and I won't, I found nothing on there while google was way easier). And he disagreed when I asked if it was reasonable request to remove my information due to the fact that I will never be using their services. So overall, don't use this site. Their customer service is ** and they won't let you remove credit card information. I'm now worried about being charged for their stupid "services" (which are extremely overpriced for the amount that they give you).

My husband purchased two ancestry DNA kits as a surprise. He knew I had an Ancestry.com account and he explained that to the Ancestry.com folks when he purchased the kits, but they directed him to open his own free account to buy the kits. Of course, they didn't mention to him that Ancestry.com subscribers had been offered the DNA kit for $79 and charged him the $99. Nice guys, eh.

I recently went to the bank for an overdraft that occurred and discovered two things. One, the bank can charge you an overdraft fee if a bill is noted in your file (it doesn't have to be posted). The second thing I discovered was Ancestry.com had been taking money out of my account for a trial subscription I didn't authorize. When I contacted them about it, I was told that there wasn't anything that could be done about the past money and that they would cancel from that point on. I didn't authorize this trial subscription!

I called to cancel my account since the monthly fee is too expensive at $20/month. Upon canceling they told me that I had just been charged the day before I cancelled for the next months bill; keeping in mind that I haven't used the product for probably about 2 weeks, they wouldn't refund my $20. I checked my credit card and the charge was still pending and was still easy to cancel; nonetheless, Ancestry.com still refused to refund my $20 despite my account being inactive for about 2 weeks and me calling the day after the charge to cancel the account. I see no reason why they couldn't accommodate me since I was only charged the day before I cancelled and my account has been inactive for about 2 weeks. This just shows the quality of customer care they convey, NONE! They are heartless crooks and have terrible customer service.

I know for a fact who my mother is because I have a copy of her birth certificate. I was adopted by my father's second wife. I cannot find a record of my mother anywhere on ancestry.com, except for one census record listing her as a 6 year-old child. Neither can I find my own birth listed anywhere. I have had the international membership for over 10 years. During this time, I also searched for my grandmother's arrival to America, and until this year, I could never find a single reference to her ever being here, even though she married, had children and died in this country. Her parents and grandparents were people of note, and when I do an internet search on them, a wealth of articles and biographies are found. I can't see how Ancestry.com can so brazenly do a TV advert with a supposed 5 generation family tree. I think that they advertise more than they can deliver.

Have been calling about this problem for many months. My relative and I have done extensive research into our family for over two years. Our trees are private, but we are both editors on each other's tree. Not able to transfer media, photos or stories from my relative's tree to mine, but can transfer people and save them to my tree. Totally useless customer service people who can only answer what is on their script which does not address this problem which only started last year. I no longer get emails when my relative adds something to his tree which I used to get. Could transfer media to my tree while only a guest last year. Now the only answer I get is make your tree public.

I was searching for a relative and when I used their website it said they found 50 matches and asked if I wanted to view them and of course I did. So I click review matches and asked for me to pay 19.95. No problem. So I did. Then asked me to pay another 44.95 just to view so I called them and asked for my money back of course. They said, "we can't refund your money." I understood that if I found the information I was looking for but I didn't so I felt they didn't deserve my money. I told them, "If you can find what I am looking for, keep the money if not I want it back." Needless to say no money and didn't find what I was looking for. I found more information searching geneologybank.com (newspaper link) than I did using their website. NEVER USING THAT SITE AGAIN.

I never had the first hit from them. I put in over 60 names, some with dates. This has been over 4 years now, still waiting.

Search feature pulls everything including what people enter into tree even when you specifically limit name and database i.e. soc sec death index. Huge waste of time. When you call to cancel every time they state they have problems with the system and you need to call back.

Signed up for a free trial logged on, did not find any useful information, cancelled that day. Now 2 months later I see they have charged me 20.99 for a monthly subscription. All the lady said was "We cannot refund your money." Do not sign up for this fraud company, save yourself the trouble.

I have been trying for six months to access my wife's data file. I can access my data file, but that my wife's. Every time I contact these people they give me a different reason for the problem. They always say the problem will be solved within a few days, but it never happens. Today I asked for the name of the CEO and an office address. I was told they are not permitted to give out this information. Unbelievable!

I ordered the download update for Ancestry Tree and then my computer had serious problems and I lost all the programs, but not the files. I contacted Ancestry about the situation, but they couldn't help because they are not the program developers and sellers. I needed to spend additional funds for a new update since there was no record of my purchase. Don't purchase a download. Always wait for the program or update in the mail. Avoid future computer problems. You know something will happen sooner or later, unless you have a Mac.

I purchased Ancestry Family tree maker in October 2013. I was not able to install the software on my computer due to a file problem. I attempted to use the call in assistance which didn't help at all. I knew I was buying a new computer and continued trying to install the software. I did purchase a new computer with windows 8.1 touch screen. Again I attempted to install the software and got a message that said the startup files were corrupt. I again called Ancestry and was again given a list of ways to install the software and after hours of work still only get a message that the startup files were corrupt. I now have over 25 hours of trying to install this software, two phone calls that took hours to wait to be answered and received nonexistent help. I have since then tried to install on another computer getting the same Corrupt startup files message.

I discovered that this company had taken up $250 from my account in August 2013......"for my convenience" ....for an annual subscription which I DID NOT REQUEST. I immediately went to my bank and filed a complaint when $200 showed up in my account. I assumed that the matter had been dealt with. It was only at the end of the month when I was reviewing my written statement that I realized the Ancestry.com had NOT reimbursed me.

I took a class on family lineage and was recommended to the site. I signed up for a free 30 day trial period. I was only able to go back so far because I knew that before a specific year, my relatives came over from other countries. While I did encounter a glitch in the system once or twice, I was able to locate a lot of information. I knew to look for misspelled names and the names of other family members because of info I received in the class. This had nothing to do with the site, but with the fact that most people couldn't spell other than phonetically back then. I was able to gather quite a bit of info and when the trial was up I spoke to a very nice man in customer service who very politely cancelled my service.

I was Google searching for an antique map of a particular place and Ancestry.com came up as a hit and gave the impression that they had it. I signed up for a free trial. This required me to agree to a subscription, with regular payments from PayPal if I did not cancel it before the free trial expired. I then searched their site and could find no map that even closely resembled what I was looking for.

I have been using Ancestry.com for several years and have been really happy with it. I did have a problem with transferring as some other people complained about, but once I updated my browser I had no more problems. Also, I have always found the customer service people to be friendly and helpful whenever I have needed to call them.

Cancelled my UK subscription in Nov 2013. Received an email saying I would not have access after 5 Dec 2013, yet they continued to charge. Contacted the call centre who almost accused me of lying and refused to refund the over payment saying I would need a cancellation no.!! Morally indefensible actions from this company and a very practiced performance by the call centre staff and from reading previous e-mails, this is not the first complaint of this nature who knows at the very least they should be revising their administrative procedure. To me, it seems like a deliberate attempt to obtain monies for nothing. Don't go there is my advice and if you do and cancel, follow it up with emails especially if you don't get that number immediately because they WILL keep taking the money.

I have worked on my family genealogy since the 1970's. I did not go on the internet until 2010 and that is when I discovered that Ancestry.com put on their site, information which was obtained from me in the late 1980's, early 1990's. This person DID NOT HAVE MY PERMISSION TO TRANSCRIBE THIS INFORMATION TO ANCESTRY.COM. What upsets me the most is the fact that this person changed the information and has so many errors that is being perpetuated through Ancestry.com. I contacted the individual and he ignored my letter. I have tried contacting Ancestry.com, numerous times and they also ignore me. I hate the fact that innocent people have to pay Ancestry.com for information that is false! I think that Ancestry.com should not be allowed to victimize innocent people with something that is important to them for future generations! Ancestry.com does not allow corrections. They are not in the business to help people - they are in the business to bilk people off their money.

I found this site to be totally useless! When I tried to call to cancel the free trial I was put on indefinite hold over and over. I tried every option on their voice mail prompt from cancelling to help. When I went to the website and logged in it shows how to cancel, but the options list it gives you is not there when you try to do it. There is no option to simply mark the box to cancel the subscription as it says. This is a total scam. I had to cancel my credit card so they can't continually bill me for a crap product.

Accessing the website takes a long time if it will let you connect to it at all. You constantly have to refresh site pages to get buttons to work. When loading info, e.g. a census, you have to try three, four or five times for Ancestry to load the info into your tree. A picture might load (if you're lucky), but it will not accepted added information. You must upload the picture then add info through the edit option. You rarely can merge another family page with your own. The site is slow, undependable, locks up, doesn't download, and in short is taking my money without providing good service. This used to be a good site. Not anymore.

This site has been unreliable and unusable for the majority of my time with them. The ads on TV showing all the wonderful information you can access is total BS. Half the time the image viewer returns an error message saying "oops we've hit a snag.." When I'm paying for a service "oops" doesn't cut it. The response from Ancestry is always its something on my end, the wrong browser (I've tried Chrome, FF, IE,...nothing on my end). The message boards are full of complaints from frustrated users who get no tech support or instructions for how to resolve the issues. I think it's time for Ancestry to either fix what's wrong and admit they have issues, or people need to cancel their subscriptions to a website that only delivers half the time if at all.

I tried ending the trial subscription early. I thought that it was ended until I saw a charge on my account. I called the company and was told the same as the last post, "Sorry but we can only end your subscription from here". Having had a similar experience with another product I'm sure there is a slight of hand here...

I signed up for the free trial for Ancestry.com and was unable to navigate to find out any info on ancestors. I thought I had canceled my trial but was surprised to find $19.99 charge to my acct. At that point, I logged in to Ancestry to cancel the membership and evidently, I was again unsuccessful. The next month, I was charged again this time. I didn't go back online but retrieved the number to call from my bank to cancel. After telling them that I was unsuccessful with the site and was unable to cancel even though I thought I has, they said, "Too bad for you." They will cancel the membership and from this point on will not be charging the account anymore. They did not offer a refund of any kind. At that point, I requested to talk to a supervisor. After being put on hold, the same customer representative came back and said that now after talking to the supervisor, he will refund the last charge of 19.99.

I would not use the DNA test for Ancestry.com. My daughter ordered it for me. I got the bos but not the purchase code. I called Ancestry because you can't email them. They said once I get the code from my daughter it will work. I got the code today, went to the website, activated the test, followed the steps and to my surprise Ancestry.com billed me for a second package. I called them again and told the guy the story. He said they have a glitch in the program and I would have to wait 7 to 10 days to get my money back. The reason my daughter bought it for me was because I did not have the money to buy it. Now my credit card will bounce this month because of a glitch (sounds like Obamacare to me). I am a retired guy on a fixed income with no money left at the end of the month.

I had been a member for years. The problem is the site has many technical problems. Buttons don't work so data doesn't transfer. The worst part is the communication. There is no email access to the site. You have to call them at certain times which don't coincide with my time off from work. So I cancelled tonight out of frustration. I have almost 11,000 family members on my tree. The lack of tech support is ridiculous. The lack of communication is even more ridiculous. I've never encountered any site on the internet that you cannot access by email. They are the first. It tells you something when the site hides from you, and an internet site too. They have too many problems and don't want to deal with all the email in response to those problems.

On Ancestry.com website, it states, "There's no risk. You'll only be billed if you decide to keep your membership after your free trial". Therefore, I did not realize I would be charged monthly unless I DECIDED to continue. That was not the case. I was charged right after the initial 14 days. I did not realize it until the second month. The day the charge was debited from my account, I called and asked for a refund and cancellation. They cancelled the charge, but it took some coaxing before a manager agreed. I like the website and will use it at a later date when I am ready to be billed.

Total scam! DO NOT GO TO THIS SITE. They're very tricky sales people. Signed up for a trial and got billed $80+ that the company refused to reverse. When I tried to cancel recurring charge through PayPal Ancestry somehow rejected it. When I called Ancestry.com I had to hold 27 minutes before they answered the phone. It seems they try to avoid answering these calls. I'm filing a complaint with the Attorney General's office and encourage others to do the same. I'm filing in my state -- it's online and simple to do.

I made the mistake of signing up for a trial on Ancestry.com. Before 14 days was over, I cancelled it. I just noticed on my credit statement that I was charged $7.95 by ARCHIVES.COM, which I never signed up for!!! And they refused to take the charge off!! So they have been reported to the Attorney General's office. I urge everyone to do the same. That is the only way to get these scumbags from charging fraudulently. BBB is not going to help. Contact your state's Attorney General's office.

While on one level, there is a lot of information on the site. There are webpage problems. One such problem I encountered is when I wanted to view original records and images. All I got is a broken web page, black in color with some format issues and about five spinning wheels. After following their suggested "fix"... clearing the cache, deleting cookies, rebooting the browser and even trying alternative browsers like Firefox or Chrome, I could never get those pages to open correctly. After checking the blog page, apparently this is not an isolated problem. The support staff always keeps pointing to my computer/software is the problem.

Just bought 2014 Ancestry FTM platinum. With alleged 6 months subscription. The minute you go to look at a document you are shown how to buy another subscription, and can not go on. Seeing as I have already got a subscription I refuse to buy another. I sent an E-Mail to them, they passed me to another E-Mail address. That address is not recognized. It's called Ring a Ring a Roses, or Ever Decreasing Circles. This new program is just a scam, do not fall for it. Now taking legal advice to get them into court. Watch this space.

Lots of poorly crafted "designs", inaccurate data, duplicates. Ancestry refuses to fix it. Save your money.

My husband used an Ancestry.com free account and was auto-renewed after 6 months for $149.70. This is too expensive for the amount of information available, plus much of the information on Ancestry.com was wrong. I called for a refund and was told that unless we cancel in a 7 day window after the renewal date, then no refund is available. Our credit card statement was received after the 7 day cancellation period and Ancestry.com offered zero refund. Ancestry.com is a total rip-off.

Ancestry.com has been experiencing system crashes, down times and numerous bugs in their website on a nearly daily basis for the past couple of months. Their product Family Tree Maker 2012 no longer operates properly with their website, constantly experiencing synchronization errors and mangling user trees. Their newest product, Family Tree Maker 2014, is even worse. I purchased a copy of FTM2014 on advice of a Customer Support rep, expecting that it would resolve issues I am having with syncing. The software crashes every time it is run. Customer Support is unable to resolve this problem and has made absolutely no effort to satisfy my financial losses for buying their software that doesn't work. BEFORE subscribing, check out all the complaints on their Facebook page and in the Ancestry.com user message boards. This site is literally falling apart at the seams.

I have been researching my Ancestry for decades and I enjoy gathering data from U.S. Census records. I subscribe to Ancestry.com to utilize easy access to Census records. Unfortunately, now I am not able to access these records although my subscription is paid. I have called Ancestry many times to try to resolve this issue to no avail. I have followed every directive they gave me yet nothing has worked. I have asked to speak with a supervisor or manager or someone who has the knowledge to solve the problem and was placed on hold, then disconnected. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY if you desire to view Census records.

My family began using Ancestry.com back in 1998. We have spent several thousand dollars with this company. My dismay goes like this: Last week I purchased the DNA kit for $99.00 + $24.95 for express shipping to my P.O. Box. Two days later, I received an email indicating that my order had shipped; via UPS to be delivered on 10/23. Wait! UPS doesn't ship to P.O. Boxes. Needless to say, when I had time to check my mail around midnight on the 23rd, there was no kit and nothing indicating that UPS had been to the post office.

I'm so irritated! I signed up for their so called 14-day free trial so I could retrieve further detail into my family history. But by signing up, they require you to give more personal information and also financial information such as a credit card. Their policy states that you may use the service for free for up to 14 days, but must cancel 24 hours prior to the last day of membership. Well, my last day of membership was on a Friday the 18th and as a member of the working class, my Friday was busy and I overlooked cancelling my account. I came into the office on Monday, was reviewing my credit card statement and noticed I had charge from Ancestry.com for the amount of $19.99 (total rip off!!).

I signed up to see if this would work... one of those trial accounts. Did not work very well. I'm very certain I canceled the next day…but apparently have been billed for a few months. My bad for not getting into details on my credit card statement. But when I called to cancel, they would not even credit the charge that just came through. Even though I have not logged into this since I tried it out. If I had used it at all they might have an argument, but I have not. Awful.

I tried to do several researches on Ancestry.com and with different family members and could not get any information. I went to Family Search, which is free, and found all the information on my ancestors. I called Ancestry.com and the rep tried different searches on the names I provided and he could not find any information. What is with all these billions of names and these big databases if you can't find any information? Stick with the free sites.

I'd been using Ancestry.com for free, for a few years, and decided last April to upgrade my services. My understanding was I bought an upgraded service package for 6 months that would increase my access to other search resources through their website. Shortly after my initial authorization of services in April, I was no longer able to access my Ancestry.com account. I'd requested a password reset link to be sent to my email, numerous times and none ever arrived. After a while I gave up trying to regain access to the account and had cut my losses. Then to my horror, the one time purchase I authorized for 6 months of services turned into an authorization of recurring charges every 6 months that Ancestry.com DOES NOT make people aware of! I tried reaching out to Ancestry.com's customer service, who would not confirm that future charges would be stopped. They also won't refund me the money from the most recent charge! Very disappointed. I've lodged a complaint with the Utah BBB and am in process of disputing the transaction through PayPal.

I responded to a "Free Trial" for Ancestry.com and overlooked their tricky method to sign me up for a NON-REFUNDABLE subscription. They would not refund a dime even though I called in less than 24 hours to try to cancel out. Watch out for these guys, they are sneaky and hide behind their air-tight legal disclaimer which is so long no one reads it, other than lawyers. The site does not even work that well. It’s a very poor search tool. Surely there is something better...

Having used Ancestry.com for many years, I am currently very disappointed with the service of the site. There have been slow-downs, links that don't work, then do work moments after you try it again, and today I couldn't get on the site at all for a good half hour. They need to get their act together or I'm leaving. As for customer-generated family trees: they're unreliable. Most folks cut and paste other trees that are inaccurate, don't know how to work the site, or don't care to put time into it. To research ancestors properly, you have to examine all the information for inconsistencies, compare it to other information and weed out erroneous information. Consumers beware.

I've been a member of Ancestry.com for years and am totally delighted with their service. True, sometimes you get DNA matches that have a locked Tree, or no tree attached, but that's not the fault of Ancestry.com -- that's the other members who don't want to make their info public. Yes, sometimes there are DNA matches that you can figure out the connection to, but it's just because you haven't gotten enough people on your tree yet to complete the match! If it says 4th cousin you'll have to have enough info to look back 7 generations (approx.) to find your connection. True, lately it has been freezing up a little more than usual, but I realize they are adding lots of new stuff and I'm not in a big hurry anyway. How exciting to find cousins I never knew I had!!

I got the free 14 day free trial for Ancestry.com. Everything I found personally was nothing but census and vague military records. Later I finally found a couple of pictures that happened to be uploaded by my aunt (I had no idea she had an account). She had done a bit of research with Ancestry but then ventured off on her own and got pictures and all sorts of information. She said she would just email me everything she found so I decided that having an account of my own would just be a waste of money. I canceled my subscription online and thought I was good to go.

Do not pay for the extra international subscription. It only had a few Norwegian death/burials and a few marriages. It is too easy to attach the wrong international relative with Ancestry.com comparisons. There are too many name similarities even on the USA version to ensure accuracy. Name spellings vary so much. There are other companies who have more accurate information and are 1/4th the cost. Don't spend $35 a month for this service.

What a racket! I ordered and downloaded Family Tree Maker over the weekend, but it would not accept the activation code. So I had to wait until Monday to call. I called and spoke to someone who emailed me a new activation code. It didn't work either. I emailed them back, but keep getting automatic responses that my case was being updated. I didn't have time to call until Wednesday evening (I mean, who can spend a half hour on hold?). I called and the person said their activation server was down and didn't know when it would be working again. She told me to try calling the next day. WHAT WAY IS THAT TO RUN A BUSINESS????

Not knocking the LDS church. They believe what they are doing is for a good cause. What other folks don't realize is that others that belong to that church even if they share a last name in a family branch, is using their data as a tool for their member selection. By this I mean, If I'm a member, I add all of my family ... Your info to my tree, then I can have temple work done. You have to agree, but in most cases the person just continues by agreeing that they are the next living kin. While they may be one of the next living kin, there may be other living kin as well, but without regard to that they add generation after generation that their "Temple work" Rituals are done for. They also believe that when we die we go to the SUN. That is worship of a Son God, don't believe me ... you can look that up anywhere.

I am not reviewing the Ancestry.com products. They are very good and are probably worth the price. I am reviewing their sales practices and lack of customer service. On 6/27/2012, I purchased a downloadable version of FTM 2012. Now, a year later I had to bring my PC in for repair. The repairman reinstalled Windows 7 on my PC. This wiped out my FTM 2012. I made contact with Ancestry.com to ask for their help to reinstall my software. Their response was that I did not purchase the software from Ancestry.com, but rather from a company called Nova Development.

While Ancestry is generally a good service, their reporting of connections of cousins in their Autosominal DNA test is really awful. What you get is a listing of people many who have not entered their family trees. It is a time consuming waste to open report after report where no family data exists. Why do they report these? I understand that many people just want the test but if the family tree is done don't report them to me.

Entered the following name to see if ancestry had any records. "We found 249,393 Record(s) for sngioeruhbnecl v;shndivn in our database." Anything to get people to sign up.

I have been using Ancestry.com for over 10 years. It is a great resource with easy to use interfaces. However, over the past 6 months there have been at least 20 days where some of the functionality of the website was down. In addition, because of a lack of simple directions to people using the website and now software that automatically grabs data from the website and copies it, there is a proliferation of bad data. People are copying the data from other people's trees. Think it is correct because, after all, it is on Ancestry.com. When calling customer service, they are very apologetic about the outages, but no consideration is given for the "downtime". This is a paid subscription service and one should expect to get their money's worth. With days a month where functionality is not complete, they need to do something besides apologize. I suggest that people who are looking for a way to document their research, look further than Ancestry.com.

I can only urge people NOT to use this. My wife ordered kits for both of us virtually at the same time. The first came in two days. The second required repeated phone calls and showed up THREE WEEKS LATER! THEN the problems began. Their registration did not work. Their staff were useless. Worse than useless. Not helpful at all. To get a refund, I had to notify my CC company of their failure to perform. Save yourself a lot of hassle and don't get them to do your DNA.

The company refunded the money for the month that was in dispute and I am pleased with the outcome. I want to thank Consumer Affairs for providing this resource to voice my complaint.

If you sign up, you can cancel online under your account section. It is set up to automatically charge you if you don't cancel. You don't have to call!!... For those complaining, most things are available for free or cheap on Mormon microfilm, but it cost money to have these things indexed. I have used Ancestry.com for years, and while it is not perfect, you can access many things quickly that would otherwise take you hours. Someone complained about Ellis island records. They are free at Ellisisland.org, but their search engine is crude and difficult to locate things... I am not happy that Ancestry.com is getting rid of their old search engine, and opting for a new search engine which is tedious and more difficult to use and filter through results... By trying to dumb it down for the masses they are actually making it worse...

Why do I have to pay big bucks to get information on things like the US Census, immigration records (non Ellis Island), and other information that should be available to the public for free? I had a trial subscription and when I called to cancel was told "no problem, you won't be charged". Well - I was charged for three months, and one of those charges resulted in an overdraft from my bank. I was finally (after speaking to a rude customer service rep who "put me on hold" for a long while) able to get a refund for three months of "service" from them. The overdraft fee? "Sorry, that's your problem." I would never ever recommend Ancestry.com to anyone. I wish I could have given them zero stars.

Today, I was going to cancel my "FREE" 14-day trial online when I found out that I wasn't eligible for a refund! I was surprised! I called their customer service and after on hold for more than 6 minutes, finally I was able to talk to the Customer Service and ask them what's going on with this? She said that I was subscribe the 'FREE' trial at first but later that day switched the subscription to the monthly (NOT a trial) that cost $34.95! I don't understand how could that happened? So, I am really sad and disappointed with this.

I have been a subscriber of Ancestry.com for years. I have finally gotten to the point where I am fed up with their customer service and their lack of respect. I am a professional genealogist, meaning I research family trees for a living. Ancestry's "user-created" trees are a nightmare. Very few are correct, even with documentation because people simply do not know what they are doing. I have complained many times when finding incorrect information on a user-created tree, asking that Ancestry either correct the information themselves or that they create a "professional's" section that allows professional genealogists to research and document trees that are correct for use by other professionals. I even suggested that they charge a higher fee for access to the professional trees. This suggestion was met with a "We can't do that. Our customers want to create their own trees".

My family has done the family tree for years way before Ancestry.com came along. Why are we paying for something that they have no rights to for public domain? I have been on a free web site through the Mormon Genealogy. I thought that the US census belong to the US Government and not Ancestry.com. I have tried Ancestry.com and half the information on my family was missing.

This morning when I tried to search Ancestry, I was sent to a new signup page indicating that I had no account. This is after my wife and I being a member and guest - as was suggested by Ancestry staff in the past. After a lengthy phone call to customer service and several explanations, I was finally told that they were just closing loopholes! Right? After a decade of subscriptions...So now, almost right after we renewed, with no mention on their part that they were changing the rules, I now do not have access to an account I have had for years. I can see their need to make even more money, but at the expense of long term customers?

Today, I got an email from PayPal stating that for the second month in a row, I was being charged $34.95 from Ancestry.com... I had signed up for a 2-week trial membership over 2 months ago, but called and cancelled prior to the end of the 2 weeks - the rep on the phone back then didn't give me a hard time or try to talk me into staying, which I just thought was giving good service... No wonder, since he didn't cancel the membership!

Today, I received an email from my PayPal account telling me I had authorized a payment to Ancestry.com in the amount of $34.95, which I had not. I attempted to go on and cancel my subscription that I assumed I must have signed up for recently and had forgotten to cancel after the free trial. After attempting to log in with my main email account and failing, I tried to have the password reset. While waiting for the password email to be sent, I went into my PayPal account, looked at the history and found out that for the last YEAR, I had been auto-billed this $34.95 charge, so I contacted Customer Service.

I sent Ancestry.com all of the info I had on my grandfather. I have both his birth certificate and baptismal certificate. I also gave my great-grandparents' names and where the birth took place. I paid over $50 (at that time). While they greedily took my money and claimed to be excited about finding my grandfather, what they found was someone whose name, birth date, parents' names or even city of birth did not even come close to my grandfather! I was ripped off!

In 2012, my private bank account was accessed by Ancestry.com as well. I did cancel my account 2 times: once online, then through customer services in 2011. One year later, I find an auto deduction from my private account. I reported this to authorities. PLEASE READ AND BE AWARE! This is considered theft! ALSO, this may be a new practice of Ancestry’s clever way to steal money from consumers. On 6/8/2013, I find an auto deduction ($79.95) by Fold3 from my private banking account. I did not sign up. I did not know this company! I come to find out this company is owned by Ancestry.com. They had to share my banking information with each other. Again, this is an extension to the problems I had in 2012 with Ancestry.com, stealing from my bank account. I contacted the FBI with this latest problem. I will not stop contacting authorities. These companies that set up renewals the way they do is for a way to steal from innocent consumers. This is a shame. The greed is that bad. Has anyone else experienced the sharing of private personal information between these companies?

This is a website where people, who have no clue with what they are doing, can just click on anything and create whatever family history they like. Very little of the info that has popped up on my tree is anything that can be confirmed. I have female descendants that have apparently had children when they themselves were 5 years old and some that have had children after they were already dead. Amazing! Some women seem to have had 24 children because people just don't do any research to clean up the information. Names are put on the list several times. Good luck trying to merge them.

I had an automatic renewal membership with Ancestry in which I agreed to the terms and conditions. Apparently, there is a 7-day cancellation policy (I agreed to this one year ago - who can remember this stuff?), and unfortunately I called on the 8th day. I was not allowed to speak to an Ancestry supervisor, just the go-between phone representative. The answer was, "Too bad, it's after the 7-day time period." While I realize I was a day late and they have every right to follow their policy, it is bad customer service to not at least prorate the fee to keep the customer happy. This has happened to me before in similar situations, and most companies are more than willing to refund money to keep the customer happy. I will never use them again, and I highly recommend that no one else does either.

I signed up for 14-day free trial, only to find out almost immediately that the record I was seeking was not included. They flashed a screen to upgrade to the World Membership, which I also thought was a free trial. Found out within a day that also did not have the record I was seeking, so I cancelled online and followed up with a call within 3 days of signing up. I was told on the phone that no charge would be put on my CC. However, my CC bill arrived with a $34.95 charge. I called again, spoke with a supervisor Caitlyn, who said there was no misrepresentation or fraud on their part and nothing they could/would do despite my cancellation confirmation within the trial period. Do business at your own risk.

I got an email from Ancestry.com that recommended Newspapers.com... I subscribed to it because Ancestry recommended it. Only after I paid for the subscription, I find out that none of the local papers in the Camden, NJ & Philadelphia, PA papers are available... a complete waste of time and money for me. Ancestry knows my location and should never have suggested Newspapers.com. In comparison, GenealogyBank.com is far better and useful for me.

I signed up for the free trial and played with the site before I realized it wasn't for me. Several days before my free trial expired, I logged on to their website and attempted to cancel my account. I wasn't able to figure it out so I called and talked to Todd. We spoke for several minutes and he said he would cancel it for me. I asked him on two separate occasions if I had anything else I needed to do in order to cancel this subscription and he said, "No, I've taken care of it." When I got my next credit card bill, I had two months of charges on it. I called Ancestry to let them know that the cancellation didn't go through and I needed a refund. They credited the second charge but not the first. They agreed to review the recording of the call and found in their favor but wouldn't allow me to review the tape or answer any further questions. I did an internet search after the fact and found numerous complaints similar or exactly the same as mine. Join at your own risk!

Ancestry says they have a free 14-day trial. When you create log-in info, they want a credit card. I thought it was free? Why? It's free. If I want to buy it, I will give them a credit card. That’s not the problem. They should give it to you for free as advertised and then if you like the product, you can sign up with a credit card. Maybe more people would buy if they did this. I always feel as though it is a scam when they ask for a credit card (just in case in the future you want to buy it). That's a bunch of malarkey!

I have been a member of the ** for several years. The list manager is George **. I believe more than a year ago, I was so appalled at the foul language that George ** uses, his "Sarge" nickname and attitude, and the fact that he lets any kind of disrespectful and demeaning posts on his list that I wrote a letter to be posted making a statement about what I consider fact. George ** himself says unkind, disrespectful and foul mouthed language to people who are simply trying to use the list to further their knowledge of their ancestors.

I had a free trial subscription to Ancestry.com. I canceled prior to my 14 days being over and when I canceled, I thought it was done and over with. Since I make automatic payments on my credit card and do not receive a paper statement, I failed to see that I was being charged. I called the Ancestry.com company and they mentioned that I did not cancel and if I did, I would have received a confirmation number. I did not receive a confirmation number but it did say that I had canceled it at that time. I have no way of showing that this was done because they did not send a confirmation email. They would not reverse the charges and only took off one month after I said that they should have record and that they should be able to tell that I never used it since that day because I thought I had cancelled the trial offer. I'm not please with this company at all. They charged over $150 for unknown membership.

On 2/7/2013, I signed up for a single month subscription telling Susan on the phone that I only needed less than a month. There was no discussion or mention about automatic renewal or the need to cancel before a new month commenced. I was able to find some of the information we were looking for and last used the site on 2/17/2013. Today, 3/13/2013, I noticed that we had been auto-billed for another month. When I called to ask for a refund, I was stone-walled by Vincent and then his supervisor Virginia saying that as a policy, they do not do refunds. Ancestry.com continues their stone-walling on their website by not providing any facility to register complaints or escalate requests to higher management. In my opinion, Ancestry.com is walking a fine line between what is barely legal and outright scam. They are an adversary, not a service to be trusted.

I had a paid account for 2 years in 2010 and 2011. I did not renew in 2012 because I had thousands of people in my tree and was in the process of making some corrections when I had the time. In January 2013, I renewed my subscription and when I went to my tree, all of my media was gone, no access to the world tree, my messages and many of my ancestors were gone and paths were broken everywhere, even to my own father who is deceased! I remembered that I had saved my tree in a Gedcom, but when I tried to open it on the site, surprise, it wouldn't open. When I did a search in their database for a relative I had been communicating with, I found another profile with my name in the list of returned trees. Upon further inspection, it was my original profile tree and I had never changed emails or any other account information.

I purchased a one year subscription to Ancestry.com for my wife for Christmas. I paid in full. On January 7, 2013, she ordered a book from Ancestry.com and paid with a credit card. They took our money, did not send the book, and every time she talks with customer service, which has been repeatedly, she gets an ever more outlandish excuse and ever more promises; but still no book. It has been two months. It has become obvious that their intention was to collect money on false promises that they do not intend to honor. A word to the wise, Ancestry.com is a scam. Use them at your own risk. This website asks if I want to talk with an attorney. I don't want to make waves, I admit we got skinned. I just want to warn others that Ancestry.com customer service representatives do not speak the truth.

Over a month ago, I cancelled my monthly subscription to Ancestry.com. I went on their site today to ensure that it was indeed cancelled. The way it was worded made me curious, so I went to remove my method of payment, just to be sure, and it was still there, with no way to remove it. So I called their "customer service" and was told that they could not remove my personal credit card information by law. "What law?" I said. "The Patriot Act," said the customer service rep, who was also chatting via text to his supervisor. I asked to speak with his supervisor, so while I waited nearly 15 minutes, while he "chatted" with his supervisor, I finally spoke to a supposed supervisor, whose only advice was for me to call back on Monday when there was someone in accounting who could help me. I asked, "So I call back on this number and ask for accounting?" Her answer, "No ask for a supervisor." Yeah, that will work. I will give it a try, but I am going to ask for a new credit card number. The Patriot Act! While on hold, I read the Patriot Act, and could find nothing about removing personal credit card information from an online subscription service!

I cancelled my Ancestry.com account about a month before the subscription ended due to not being able to afford a renewal. I was pleased with the site, aside from the fact that no matter what I did, I couldn't get the buttons to work on the site - a java problem that me or anyone else couldn't figure out. We tried everything. Different browsers, different computers - nothing worked. I'm not computer illiterate. I know what's up. I had to go between my smartphone and the website if I wanted to add anything to my family tree and it ended up being too big of a hassle. So like I said, I cancelled.

I canceled my monthly subscription in September/October. I'm unsure of the actual date because I didn't receive a confirmation. I didn't think twice about it since I'd canceled by phone. I just realized I've been getting charged ever since. I contacted customer service. There is nothing they can do. I said, "Sure there is; you just don't." I've filed a dispute with my credit card company. A quick Google search shows people with the same issue.

I have had an auto pay account for several years. I bought the Family Tree Maker around Oct. 2012 and with it was a 2-week free trial. I added the free trial to my account. I have not been on the website for quite a while due to illness. My billing information on the site is up to date. I have years of information on this site that will be lost to me if I do not renew at a higher price. I never received a notice of cancellation. I feel this is a way to cancel subscriptions that are grandfathered at a lower price. This used to be a quality company. I'm very disappointed I thought this was a quality company.

When I was placed on hold for about 5 minutes last week, the music was so loud that I had to hold the phone away from my ear. I could actually hear it with the phone standing on the desk. When my call was answered, I asked why the music was so loud and was told it was not on their end - I should look on my own phone and turn the volume down. I then asked why I had found a page from Ancestry's website that was not attached to anyone's tree that had numerous errors. As it was my great grandfather's page I was well of aware what was correct and what was not correct. He paused and said that the page should be right. And when I asked where they got the information, he said "the government". I then asked to speak with a supervisor and was placed on hold for quite a while. When he came back, he said there was no one available. Much has changed since Ancestry has been sold. I will not be renewing my World subscription and would not renew at all, but I want my tree to be available until I am finished and can get it transferred to a program that has nothing to do with Ancestry. I might add that their DNA project is a rip off.

I had an account with Ancestry.com and when my log in failed to be recognized, I contacted their customer service. I was told I had reverted to a free account as my annual subscription had not renewed. When I pointed out I didn't have access to even a free account, my log in was reset and when I logged in, my trees were not there. They had been removed or deleted. I tried to resolve this with Ancestry customer service but there was apparently no resolution. This was in the beginning of 2012! Now, in December of 2012, they billed me for $299.40 on my credit card for a renewal of the same account! I filed a fraud claim with my credit card and we had a conference call. The rep for Ancestry said there was an account using my credit card that had an entirely different name, etc! I will never ever have anything to do with Ancestry.com ever again.

This is the last day of my free subscription. I just went to my account online to cancel so that my CC would not be auto charged at midnight. I could not find the cancel link. I checked their help and there were the instructions with a picture of where the cancel link was supposed to be, but on my screen, it was gone. I called their 1-800 number and their system just kept repeating the same options and would not advance to where I needed to go to do the cancellation. After 3 attempts, the system just hung. From here, I went to try to remove my CC info from their system. They do not allow this unless you put in another active card.

I must have signed up for a trial membership to Ancestry.com and just noticed a charge for $77.70 on my credit card bill. I called to cancel it but it was past the 7-day period and they would not even pro-rate a cancellation of the 6 months’ charge. I asked them why I was not notified by e-mail and they said an e-mail was sent but it was not. I keep all of my incoming mail and there was only one e-mail confirming my trial membership and nowhere in that e-mail was there mention of the $77.70 six months’ charge coming. When I clicked on the terms and conditions, the fees are not mentioned. The 800 number and the representative was quite rude and said an e-mail was sent (even though it was not) and that there isn't supposed to be an amount in the confirmation e-mail because it would have been in the trial package that I selected.

I was billed without notice for ancestry.com. When I got my credit card statement, I was charged and called them to cancel. They stated I was past the 7-day due date on cancellations even though my statement came in after the 7 days. I asked for them to cancel and credit me for the next 6 months - they refused. I asked to speak to a supervisor. I got some guy named Christopher on the phone who gave me the same runaround told me he was in charge and that I couldn't speak to anyone else. He would not give me his last name or the name of his supervisor. I have belonged to this company for many years and this is how they treat their customers? How can they bill for something I haven't used yet?

This is the 2nd time I've been burned. Ancestry.com is a quality site and what they offer is better than what anyone else offers. That is all fine and good until they rip you off. How do they rip you off? They have absolutely everything running against you when you sign up so that unless you are paranoid and fastidious, you'll get robbed. They do it in more than a few ways:

I've read other complaints about online account cancellations here on Ancestry.com. My situation is about the same. I cancelled online in July 2012 and received the notification screen that my account was cancelled. I received no email confirmation, but didn't worry about it. Just now (we have lots of regular charges on our credit card), I noted that I've been charged monthly since then. After a long customer service phone call, I've been notified that I will not receive a refund (except for the current month, prorated). I was told to send an email to customersolutions@ancestry.com explaining my situation. That is not satisfactory to me at all. I hope they read this.

I am a subscriber to Ancestry.com's World Explorer service and have been very pleased with the results. I also research my family's history on about a dozen other sites (some free, some not) and can state unequivocally that I have made more discoveries that turned out to be accurate through Ancestry than any other single service. That doesn't mean that Ancestry is the best for all cases nor is it always accurate. It just happens to contain an aggregated record collection numbering in the billions and a very helpful "Hint" feature that helps you discover clues or potential evidence for further research.

In December of 2012, I cancelled my Ancestry account. I did so online and was advised that I was not eligible for a refund, however would have access to my account up until my monthly renewal date at which point my account would be closed and a payment would not be processed. I did not do a print screen of this, much to my regret. I do not believe there was a cancellation number and there was no mention of an email confirming my account was cancelled.

I have wasted nearly 2 hours on Ancestry.com. I enter all the information and I continually get the following error: "We're sorry, an error occurred when you tried to add information to your tree. This error will be reported and reviewed. Thanks for your patience while we resolve this issue." I called their help desk with no satisfaction. The operator mentioned that the developers were working on the problem, but that was several days ago. Has anyone else experienced these problems? Were they able to get a solution? At this point, I would not recommend Ancestry.com. Once they get your money, they don't seem to care about their service.

I bought a 6-month trial membership for my wife in December 2011. She found it too cumbersome, so she stopped using the service. At the end of the 6-month period, Ancestry.com notified my wife that they were auto-renewing, but they never notified me. They've hit my Paypal account twice for $149.70. Avoid these people at all costs! They're like joining a record/CD company. But I'm pretty sure their auto-renewal violates the new credit card law that took effect January 1, 2012, so I'm moving on to the State of Utah Attorney General's Office.

Part Two, December 04, 2012 - Additional information I failed to mention in the previous complaint that I completed the 3 question survey extended to me after the customer service call. Also, I left a detailed message regarding the membership fee charge on an expired credit card. No phone call or email received from Ancestry. I also left a message on their website. Today, I received the following response through the Consumer Affairs website: “Sorry to hear about the inconvenience. We'd be very happy to look into this further for you. Please contact us via email at socialsupport@ancestry.com and we'll be happy to help!”

December 2, 2012, my expired credit card was charged for a six-month subscription renewal. I did not update my information because the email I received on December 1, 2012, stated the following: “Please update your payment information. We attempted to contact you recently about your Ancestry.com membership. Unless we receive updated payment information, your Ancestry.com membership will be closed in 11 days.” To most people, that would mean you do not have to call, email, or go through the website to cancel your membership. I called Ancestry.com and was told that they gave me a grace period and my subscription expired October 2012. So, I asked them, if the membership expired, and the credit card expired 7/2012, why did they charge the expired card December 2, 2012? After the representative continued to state the same thing, I became extremely frustrated and asked to speak to the complaint department. She told me I can leave a message after completing the 3-question survey at the end of the call. Unbelievable! Is there a class action suit against this company?

About 22 September 2012, I started a subscription titled US Essentials which is inexpensive but that was all I was wanting at the time. Shortly after that, I was looking at my Sent Message folder and there were no messages showing after July 2012 which was about the time I let my previous subscription lapse. At the time, I did not realize that persons with an inactive subscription could not send messages unless it was a reply. I thought that Ancestry was having one of their frequent problems and did not give it a thought for a week or so. During this time, I read about the message policy for inactive subscriptions, but many of my summer emails were replies and they were not in my Sent folder. On my first call to Ancestry (wait time was about 20+ minutes), a polite young lady tried for almost 45 minutes with her supervisor to find out what was causing the blocked message problem. Problem was not solved and service person would write a report and give to the Tech department to look at.

On October 16, 2012, I ordered Family Tree Maker 2012. I received an e-mail that it was shipped on October 17th. When I had not received it by November 1st, I contacted them by e-mail and received a reply that I should have received the shipment by October 31st but to wait until November 6th to see if it would show up. I telephoned on November 6th to say that I still did not have the order and was told they would re-ship and expedite the order. Today is November 13 and still no order. I've just telephoned again and after far too long on the line, I was told that I should have received it by November 30th! To say I am angry and dissatisfied is an understatement.

Do not use ancestry.com. They say the trial is free, you think you cancelled, but the bills will keep coming. I did not notice the charges for several months - the first statement after my cancellation was clean, after that the charges started. I used the service for one day and paid for over $100. I received no additional billing emails or letters. Life has been extremely difficult the past several months due to personal reasons, and I must have overlooked these thieves stealing my money. After catching them, they acted like it was my fault and this is the first time it happened. I wished I would have checked this website before logging on. Please never use this service - you will be very disappointed. I hope they go bankrupt or to jail for stealing hardworking people's money.

I purchased a 3-month subscription from Sam's Club. I had to use a credit card to initially sign up. The 3 prepaid months were not honored, and then I was continually billed up to this month for $34.95 per month even though I canceled months ago. My credit card company is disputing the charges with Ancestry. Don't bother with them; it's not worth what they charge.

I wish I would have found this site sooner! I have had to cancel my ATM card so that they would stop billing. I have cancelled three times and they just keep billing. If you're going to use their service, please use a credit card that you are able to cancel when you're finished with them.

I signed up for a one-month membership using a credit card I seldom use back in February 2012. I wasn’t satisfied with the information I obtained (it was pretty limited). So I didn't choose to use their services for longer than the one month. It wasn't until six months later that I noticed that they continued to bill my credit card (my mistake for not checking). But I have a very minimal balance on this card, so I don't always check my statements and just pay online. When I called my credit card company to dispute, they arranged a three-way call with ancestry.com. Although they "could not find me in their system" according to their rep, they continued to bill me regardless and wanted me to jump through all kinds of hoops to make them stop charging me and to refund the charges.

This is what I just sent in to Ancestry.com. I called the 1 800 2623787 number this spring to cancel my subscription. I was told I had until September to use the account (which I didn't). I was just charged again for the account and sent an email that states, "In order to prevent further billing, we have canceled your membership at the end of term. You will retain access to the records included in your membership until March 5, 2012, at which time your membership will expire." March 5, 2012? Really? Great, that was seven months ago!

Beware the trial. Like others, I signed up for a 14-day trial and cancelled online before the trial period was up, due to the frustration of "premium" information and a lack of applicable international sources (although I do hold that I discovered a handful of leads to follow up on, making this more of an Ancestry social networking site than a real research database). A month later, I noticed a $77 charge on my Visa. I checked the website, and my account was still listed as active.

I went online to cancel month-to-month ac and had a strange feeling but thought it was all taken care of. They have billed me last 2 months and I had no confirmation # so I am screwed. Beware of Ancestry.com.

Same scam as everybody else. I signed up for free trial and cancelled within the 14-day period online. I haven't been on the site since I cancelled. Then I finally opened a credit card statement this month and noticed they were charging me over the past year and a half. Definitely, I should have checked my statements. But, they are scumbags. When brought to their attention, they offered a one month refund, then a six month refund and I am still battling with them. It looks like there was a class action suit years ago. Anybody have any current info on that? In addition, I would encourage people to notify their respective Attorney General's offices to make them aware of the situation.

They slammed my charge card monthly for $200. Don’t approve the account or you’re automatically charged monthly.

I have used Ancestry.com for many years. However, after more than 25 years of family history research, during which time Ancestry.com was of little help, I kept hoping that they would help me through or around some barrier; never happened. In all fairness, they have vastly improved the number of resources available online but these are resources I have already exhausted through vacations to the Family History Library in Utah, or my local Family History Library. The point is I have repeatedly cancelled my subscription yet they keep billing my credit card. According to their policy, I must file any legal charges against them in Salt Lake where their office is. How convenient for them. I never worried about their policy because I never anticipated they would continue the practice of what amounts to theft from my account.

Despite e-mails, phone calls, and letters, Ancestry.com would not cancel my account! I tried to cancel for 4 months! They said they never received any information that I wanted to cancel. I’m beyond frustrated and out of $120.00.

Ancestry.com allows false information to be passed off as factual. They allow history to be changed. There are members on Ancestry.com who want to be in a famous family, so they insert a member of their family in the famous person's entire ancestry. I know this firsthand because my grandmother is the niece of Orville and Wilber Wright, who flew the first airplane. I know their history personally. Ancestry's first choice in finding relatives of the Wright Brother's said that Orville Wright was married to Hattie McLaren in ten of the member trees. In fact, he never married! People just copy the trees because they think that they are factual. I reported this to Ancestry.com and their answer was anyone can put whatever they want into their family trees. They have First Amendment rights to free speech. Remember this if you are tempted to trust member trees.

My wife happened to be watching "Who do you think you are" on TV and decided she would try and sign up for the free trial. She did spend a few days on the site and essentially found nothing about her family on there. She canceled and stopped using the account. Today, I just happened to be going through our CC statement and found a $150 charge from them. So I made a call and spoke with someone who had no desire to try to assist me at all stating there is nothing they could do.

Ancestry.com has always been a reputable organization in my mind. That is, until trying their 14-day free trial period. They sent an order confirmation email on July 24, 2012 and this meant I should cancel or continue after this 14-day period. They were notified on the 11th day, August 3rd, and told them I liked the information found but had no further need to continue. I canceled my account. My credit card statement arrived today and on August 9th, they charged my credit card $77.70. Their website is devious and almost impossible to navigate. Although Ancestry.com has been known in positive ways, I should have sensed a scam. Be careful with this outfit!

Before the birth of my son, we decided to see if there were any neat family names we could find to use. We tried the free 2 week trial of Ancestry.com never wanting to subscribe but putting our card number in to try it. We cancelled the trial and went on our merry way. This was over a year ago. We found out that they had been charging our account ever since. We called to complain to which the person on the phone rather rudely told us that there was nothing she could do. I asked for a manager and was told none were available and to send an email to customer service. We have done this and still not gotten any of our money back even though they admit we have not been on their site in over a year. I have sent a complaint to the BBB and would like to find out about starting a class action against them as this seems to be their standard operating procedure.

It is unclear that you can only order a hard copy of a certificate, but I realized in seconds and cancelled the order. A week later, they told me that it was too late to cancel the order. They are going to charge me $27 for something I don't want.

I tried the "free" trial and didn't want to join, so I didn't. I didn't ever visit the site again. I found they were billing me each month without my consent and even after we had changed credit cards. Evidently, the banks can bill with the old number even though it has been discontinued. How can that possibly make any sense? So, if a credit card is stolen, it's reported stolen and a new one is issued, the stolen one can continue to be used? Uh?

Ancestry.com rip-off - I used their 14-day free trial. Their website offered 1 month for $22.95 so I thought I was getting just 1 month. I realized they were charging my CC monthly. I cancelled on their website and received a cancellation number. Seven months later, I (my fault for not checking on them) discovered they are still charging me. I couldn't find the cancellation number at the time of the call so I got a second cancellation number. I asked the agent to remove August 2012 charges and she said she couldn't.

My family history keeps getting lost. I have worked for many years researching through many records and adding to my family tree maker and it just disappeared. Lots of my records are gone and I can't get them back. I do not intend on paying hundreds of dollars to get my history back from Ancestry.com and I don't like the idea that they take my information and try to sell it back to me. Can someone tell me how to retrieve my records? I am disgusted with Ancestry.com. If you have a family tree maker, check your history and see if you have records missing. I bet you do.

I attempted to purchase a 6-month subscription of the product (US Discovery). The advertised price is listed as $12.95* for a 6-month membership. The fine print near the asterisk reads "All 6-month memberships billed in one payment." Well, based on the fact that the quoted price of $12.95 is listed in a column for 6-month membership, and the fine print states 6-month memberships are billed in one payment, I understood that to mean the cost would be $12.95 upfront. However, when I advanced to the next screen the total cost was $81.59 ($77.70 + $3.89 tax). I thought there was a system glitch so I called customer service. It was explained to me that the $12.95 price that is quoted for the subscription is actually the cost per month, so the total for 6 months is $77.70 ($12.95 x 6). Nowhere on the page does it state the $12.95 price is per month. The customer service rep went on to say she understood the pricing, but a lot of people don't because they get a lot of calls about pricing. She went on to say she wish there was another way they could list it so people would understand. My response to her was, “If you just list that price as $77.70 for 6 months, that will eliminate the confusion.” I think the way they have their prices listed is really misleading.

I enrolled in Ancestry.com for a trial period of 3 weeks with 1 month of paid service. I did not sign up for a reoccurring charge on my credit card for $35.00. Fortunately, I fund the charge after only 1 month on extra charges. I cancelled the alleged subscription via the internet (confirmation # **) after about 3 "are you sure" screens trying to confuse the issue. I called Ancestry.com on the phone and after being on hold for 20 minutes, I spoke to a representative and was advised that I apparently overlooked the monthly renewal portion of the agreement and that she could not refund the improper charge. Her records also indicated that I had not used their resources in well over a month. I feel that this company is conducting very deceptive business practices and should be held accountable for their actions. I will be sure to let everyone I know about these practices and ask them to tell a friend and so on. Perhaps bad word of mouth publicity would force them to conduct business above board and not to steal by deception.

I searched my own family tree and was at first excited to find that I had royal roots. I searched my husband’s family tree and found that we had some of the same royal roots and apparently we're related on both his mom and dad’s side. Then, I added Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley as relatives and nothing happened (I actually got hints for them, though). To make a long story short, take everything on this site that isn't confirmed with a grain of salt. It is a wild goose chase that could have ignorant people believing that they are related to Trojans and biblical figures.

I went to cancel a trial subscription and granted it was after the two week trial. So okay, I had to pay the monthly charge but I did cancel. Come to realize this is my fault, I continued to get charged but I didn't check my credit card until August. I cancelled in June supposedly but it never got cancelled. I immediately went in and cancelled my subscription on 8/16/12. I realized how deceptive their cancellation process is. It kept asking me if I was sure in various forms. This was probably the reason my cancellation never went through originally. I called them and even though she noted I had no activity after June, she still could not refund my charges. Beware and be careful. You should probably cancel by phone and get a confirmation number.

I was looking for my Irish ancestors. This is a difficult task because they immigrated during the Irish potato famine and Ellis Island lost many of those records in a fire. Anyway, Ancestry.com brought up a map and pinpointed where my family came from in Ireland. I took that information and spent $75 to have research done in the designated Irish county. Well, the county couldn't find anything and I mean anything. So, I contacted Ancestry.com and got a very snooty guy who basically told me that they don't guarantee anything. What?! I tried to get the map to come up again, but never could. So, I was not only out the money I spent at Ancestry.com, but also the Irish research money that was clearly a waste. It would have made a difference if I had been treated with respect, but I wasn't.

I am trying to make my family tree as accurate as I possibly can. Unfortunately, there is a lot of source material that is anywhere from a little inaccurate to 100% wrong. This can include all government records. In my research, I have generally found that at least 15% of all government records are wrong - this includes all census records. I have run into instances where 60% of the government records are wrong, and when dealing with government records that originate in or around Chicago from about 1940 forward, I have found as much as 100% of the records to be wrong.

I posted yesterday on my dissatisfaction with Ancestry.com. Almost immediately today, I received a call from their customer service. The girl was very friendly and interested in finding a resolution. She gave me a full refund and politely pointed out where my husband and I had made our mistake. When he purchased a subscription for me as a gift on Christmas day, we clicked a regular subscription that gives the two weeks then does an automatic renewal. We thought we had the gift subscription that expires without a renewal. We will definitely be purchasing their service again. This time, we won't let the excitement of Christmas morning stop us from reading more carefully. Thank you very much to Ancestry.com and to this site.

My husband bought me a subscription for Christmas. They immediately gave me the "two weeks free" then offered an upgrade for the original purchase price. At the end of six months, I could no longer access their search and they were sending me offers to renew. I only have time in the winter so I figured I would re-buy later. Then, they offered some "free days" which I used right before my husband's family reunion. After those days, I was again denied access. Then, I was billed for the upgraded service that I never really wanted. They insist my service was never blocked. They claim I requested the "free two weeks." Both of these are lies. I wanted a refund. They said no. I wanted a postponement till I had time to use the service. They said no. I asked to speak with a supervisor. They said no. Now I'm going through my credit card company. Do not give these people your credit/debit card or bank information.

This is a follow up on my post on 7/19. After fruitless attempts to get Ancestry.com to refund their error in billing me again after I had cancelled my account, I sent them an email and told them I was going to post the issue here and also turn them into the Better Business Bureau, which I promptly did. I then got an email saying that a supervisor had agreed to make an exception and credit my account. And when I got home, someone from Ancestry.com had called and wanted to talk to me about this issue.

This is a follow up to my earlier post, to be fair. I called my bank, Chase, on the charge from Ancestry. The agent stated we had to contact Ancestry to try and get them to work out the problem first. Good luck, I thought. Well, Ancestry gave the appearance to want to work this out; my underlying suspicion being because it was Chase calling. They cancelled my World Premier (?) subscription and are crediting it back to my credit card within 5 days. They gave me a cancellation number as well. I hope this goes through without a hitch. If it does, I will be satisfied. I asked one question though that the agent said she could not answer, when the last time I accessed the account was. It has been over two years. It would seem to me that with all the abilities that Ancestry has, why can't you check to see if it is an active account (i.e. been accessed in the last year) before auto billing? The answer would be that they could, but it would mean hundreds of millions in lost revenue. The others here are real people with a real problem with Ancestry.

Over the years, I've played the game of signing up for a free trial at Ancestry.com, only to cancel as it ended. Because, I wasn't using it enough to justify the cost. I later discovered that many versions of software that they sell come with a 6-month free membership. I've bought an outdated version, go family tree maker online for next, go nothing on eBay and just used the 6-month membership. After awhile of this, I actually became a genealogist. It's truly a hobby of mine, so the cost of Ancestry.com doesn't seem much at all in that capacity. I spend more on my road bike than I'll ever spend on an Ancestry membership, so I've been very satisfied with what I get for the cost. And for those times when I cancelled, their cancel policy was always followed, no mistakes, or lies as others claim.

Ancestry.com is a scam web site. The information you get through them is already easily available to you from other non-pay sources. A.C does not give you access to all their information at once so you can do thorough searches. They give you information a little at a time, so it takes you longer to research, and in the end, they can charge you membership fees again. They also wait until you no longer use the service, and then slide membership fees on your credit card in a way that most people don't notice. This scam has been well thought out and is a direct assault on innocent people. Shame on you! And now, one of them is running for president?

Ancestry.com are liars and cheats. I cancelled my membership on 7/9. You have to tell them why you are leaving their service. Then, I went onto the website the next day to see if they had cancelled my access, which they had. I got my credit card statement today and lo and behold, they charged me another month’s subscription on 7/10! The same day they cancelled my access. I've sent several emails and they keep saying they have no record of my cancellation. Isn't that funny! How did my access get cancelled then?

Never use your bank card when dealing with this company. Buy a card with just enough money to pay one time because they will keep going into your bank account after you ask them not to. I learned my lesson about Ancestry.com several years ago.

If you are doing genealogical research, do not use this site as they're more about the money than accuracy and will try to get you to sign up for their free trial. Some idiot in my family (trying to find which one could take awhile) put my mother in there and got everything wrong! I'm wondering if they even knew her! Her name is wrong, her birth date is wrong, her spouses are wrong, her parents' information is wrong, her dad's name is wrong, her death date and death place are wrong! But Ancestry.com will not correct anything unless you contact the person who recorded it, but you can't find who recorded it without joining. They do not care that thousands of people could be making their family trees with bogus information that could actually cause some problems at some point (such as tribal affiliations, etc. You have to have your t's crossed and your i's dotted for possible enrollment).

I signed up for free 14-day trial. I canceled the subscription but noticed a $77.70 charge on my credit card. Scam artists are billing consumers, even if they cancel. I talked to a service rep who sent me a cancellation notice, but no notation debiting the $77.70, so presumably, they are trying to keep the initial subscription funds. Make sure you submit a dispute through your credit card. I doubt they will refund my money as stated.

I got the free trial membership, then paid $19.95 for an additional month, because I was still using the service. The service is legitimate, and worth the money if you're doing genealogy research. However, when I canceled, I went through all the steps on the website to cancel, and assumed I was done. Then the next month, my card was charged another $19.95. So I called them. They could see that I hadn't logged into the account since the day I cancelled, and cancelled the membership during the phone call. But because of their "new policy", they were not able to refund the $19.95, since I didn't have an email with a "cancellation number".

Surprise monthly subscription - Beware, Ancestry.com uses deceptive practices. They automatically enroll you in a monthly program for $20/month.

I got the email invitation from Ancestry.com about the 1940 census and searched out several promising leads for my father: census records, military records, naval records, etc. But whenever I tried the links for any of the search results, I got nothing but another "invitation" to sign up for a service upgrade. So, I thought to myself, "Okay, it might be worth signing up for a 14-day free trial." But I then pulled up short when they wanted my credit card info and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I popped open a new page, googled "ancestry complaints", and quickly confirmed my suspicions. Thank you all for relating your accounts of the miserable, underhanded, cheating low-life scoundrels at Ancestry.com. You saved me a few bucks and a world of grief.

Ancestry.com continued to charge my credit card after I had cancelled their service. After I called them and spoke to their supervisor Laura, Ancestry.com would not reimburse the extra charges because they said that they did not see a "cancellation" in their system (despite me cancelling my account online months prior). I argued that it is not my problem that their system failed to send me a cancellation number, but they did not care. Thinking about it now, I realize that anybody could cancel their subscription online and be told "Oh sorry, we didn't receive your cancellation in the system" which gives them the excuse to keep charging you, or should I say, ripping you off.

I canceled my subscription three months ago and now they are charging me again. I was very angry as they will not refund the $50 they stole from me. I canceled again today, but I'm out the money. I did print a cancellation page this time so if they charge me again, I will sue them. I'm so angry right now I'm shaking.

Under the “edit” feature of Ancestry.com personal file page, one is make corrections or additions. However, once I did that, the server didn't perform the tasks. This has happened dozens of times. I contacted Ancestry.com by email. Today, I sent more than 12 emails since now I can't access the website. I have performed all the tasks they said I needed to do to optimize my experience. I can furnish that if you like.

I pressed the unsubscribe button on Ancestry.com and it came up as unable to open, then I tried to email them, but unable to do that. I tried to log-in but forgot my password, so requested to send it to me via my email, and it hasn't arrived. I am still receiving the email from them, even though it goes into my junk section of my email box and I live outside of Australia now, and don't need this service as it was to hard to use. Can you help?

I subscribed on 07/10/2011 to a Free Trial on Ancestry and went to cancel while I was logged in. I received an error message and closed the website. Several Days later, I went in to cancel again and got the same error. I then looked up their phone number and called to cancel the subscription. I was told that they would look into the error and that they (the support person) would cancel the subscription. He told me to write down the cancellation number, but did not because he also said that I would get an email confirmation which I did not check nor did I realize that I never got the confirmation email.

I subscribed to a 14 day free trial, used my first week to get familiar and look up birth and deaths known to me. In my second week, I completed a family trail for up to 4 generations. I cancelled my trial and free account on day 10. They will not allow me to save all the input and work I have done. They have all my family details in their database and I helped them! I thought family details belong to families and not Ancestry.com. Should we charge them for using our family’s details? I have now written to them and requested that they remove all of my family’s details. I uploaded pictures of my kids, I’m not happy.

I contacted Ancestry.com to let them know that false information was put on their website. What I am talking about is a person that is on the website that is said to be dead is not dead. I gave Ancestry the information and they refused to do anything about the matter. II am pissed because of this! There is no reason why they can't find out why this was done and let the person that did this know that this should not have been done. That's all I wanted is just to know why!

The fee is completely misrepresented! First, you hear "free trial", then you hear "will be charged later" and are led to understand there will be a fee per month, the total to conclude in six months. What actually happens is two weeks later, they take the whole shebang out of your checking (leaves me flat), all at once... not the monthly amount that they quoted, but the entire thing?! Calling did nothing, they have a delightful young man, obviously a psyche major (he did talk me down), but I am very angry and apparently have no recourse so I am writing my complaint to add to those other 'led astray' hapless old folks (and perhaps not so old) who did not 'get' the language and had this experience too. Shame on them, this is a dirty trick! PJ **, a very not happy "customer".

I live on Social Security. When someone says free to me, I think free.I don't think I have spent time filling in all the blanks for the"free" and then they charge me. It is a scam.

I submitted my credit card info for what I thought was a free 14-day trial. The site advertises that if you call and cancel before the 14-day free trial is up, there will be no charges to your account. That is not so. There's a lot more to it than this, which is not disclosed at time of credit card submission (if it is, it's not well highlighted like the fact that you can cancel before the trial period is up if you no longer wish to have the service). I just looked in my account and it was debited for $39.99, which is the cost of membership. Bottom line, I just emailed the customer service about refunding my money. I can't wait for the response on that. I'm sure it will be unfavorable. I'm going to spread the word to everyone I know not to fall for this ** company.

Ancestry.com runs really slow. It takes forever for the files to download. Why can't someone fix this. It's not the computer; it's the site. Please fix this as soon as possible.

A senior taking 4 months to build family tree. It's painful to use computer, so just want to finish tree and make copies. A week ago, tree quit uploading. Ancestry acknowledges problem with Safari browser through Verizon in So. Cal. but only suggestion is to change to browser Firefox. Much, much time working solutions w/ Ancestry, Verizon, and searching internet. Finally, getting Verizon to come to my home and have to pay for Geek Squad but no solution in sight. I don't understand why ancestry.com isn't required to warn Mac users about this potential problem!

I thought I paid for a one-month trial, but Ancestry.com debited my Australian visa card for another 11 months without my knowledge or consent. I didn't realize they were debiting my Australian visa account because I am no longer an Australian resident. The quality and usefulness of information were poor and after the first month, I abandoned the service thinking they would contact me if I needed more. Subscription information and trading terms were misleading and designed to trick customers into paying for more than they wanted.

I had an online subscription to Ancestry.com that I paid on for a few months and found all I could. Then I went online and followed their directions to unsubscribe. I had just happened to look at my PayPal account and they had never stopped billing me. So I paid about $160 that they took out of my bank account. And when I called, they wanted my cancellation number. So if you ever do this, be sure to save your cancellation number because it is just my word against theirs. This sucks.

I subscribed to ancestry.com. I was under the impression I was only supposed to be charged a $49.00 fee for one year. Today, I checked my bank account and I am $50.00 in the red. Overdrawn that will cost me an additional $35.00. I cannot afford this. Please refund my money and unsubscribe me from you ancestry.com.

I got my 14-day trial, knowing I would more than likely go over and be charged, so no problem there. I began spending hours and hours searching for my ancestors, and got all the way back to the 1700's. I decided I didn't want to keep getting charged because there wasn't a lot to get after digging that deep, so I cancelled. Little did I know when I cancelled, all of my hard work would be erased. I am not a happy customer!

We have harassment orders against an abuser and they opted out our names from the databases. We were opted out of everything and they took our name off in two hours. However, ancestry.com says that it will be 45 days to take our names out. We never put our name in the database. The CEO Tim ** obviously can't run a legitimate business but he seems to be sucking up a ton of glory and money from cheating and exploiting others. There are (7) pages of complaints about them.

My daughter started a project on the Ancestry.com website approximately one year ago. When she took it as far as she could, I told her to cancel--$83.85 every three months. The first time I got rebilled, I was not overly upset but told her to cancel again. The third time I was rebilled, I watched her to make sure she followed all the steps. She got the cancellation email. I was billed again the 4th time now since we started the cancellation process.

If you have any issue with Ancestry.com, you should write directly to their chief lawyer. His name is William C. **. He is a good friend of mine. William C. ** Ancestry.com Inc. Corporate 360 West 4800 North Provo, UT 84604 801-705-7000 801-705-7001 ** And, if you'd like review Mr. **'s offer letter, here it is: **

Over a year ago, I purchased the updated Family Tree Maker software which came with a 9-month subscription. I never did use the software, got busy with other things, so I went in and canceled the subscription. I actually have two accounts on Ancestry.com from two different version of the software I've purchased over the years. When the 9 months were up, I was charged $89.95 for another 9 months. I was mad because I canceled the account, but they said I only canceled one of the accounts and not the one that had the active subscription so they would not refund my money. They said they never refund money.

My complaint has to do with the information I was given about my ancestors. I was told that my husband's ancestor was from county Roscommon in Ireland. So, I contacted the ancestry center in Roscommon and paid money for a search. They came back with nothing. When I contacted Ancestry.com again, they didn't respond. And I wasn't able to access the part of the system that had given me the information in the first place, even though my membership was still current.

I was under the impression that subscribing to Ancestry.com was a one-time deal. Pay $29.95 for a month and it’s all over. Instead, they charged me $29.95 per month for 4 months until I just canceled. I never would have known for not looking at my credit card statement. I think that’s bad business practice. At least, an email would have been nice. Please take note.

I received a subscription from Ancestry.com for 3 months and forgot to cancel it until after my bill came. I cancelled it and they said they would not refund my money. But that they would cancel it as of then, but I would still have access until the end of the subscribed period. Now, another three months has gone by and they charged my credit card account again without my authorization. I have not even logged on for the last 3 months! I will call them in the morning during their small window of availability. Though their tools are very nice, I recommend that no one ever, ever, give them a credit card number. Never!

I don't trust the internet anymore. Genealogy.com published my mother's maiden name, etc. etc. and it is owned by ancestry.com. There is no way to remove the info which can be used for identity theft and discrimination. It should be illegal to publish details about living people without their permission.

I registered for a month's use of what I thought is their website and found out later that I had registered for a continuous service membership service. No where during the registration process were the words continuous service membership used. The phrase monthly $19.95/month was stated with no mention of it being automatically being renewed without notice on a monthly basis. The only place the phrase continuous service membership was used was in the terms and conditions which were noted at the very bottom of one of the web pages in very small print. I feel **** advertising is misleading and deceptive.

Ancestry.com has provided data about me on the internet, full name, birthday, parent’s names, and mother's maiden name. This puts me at great risk, as my credit card was recently compromised and my mother's maiden name is the key to stealing my identity. I've send numerous emails to the company, called the distant cousin who provided the information, and called the Ancestry.com in Utah (Asking that this data be removed!)

I am attempting to cancel my account and stop them taking payments from my checking account with no results or dialog with them. They will not communicate. My checking account will be overdrawn and an overdraft fee of $25 will be charged to me by my bank.

I am paying for a ancestry web search service and can't even access my family tree. They also have many records from Marinette County, WI mixed up with Marathon County, WI records and I have told them, they don't fix it. There are also broken links in family trees so when you move a gedcom to a PAF file, some people in your family tree completely disappear. I told them this too. I seem to be paying a monthly charge, and they have ignored my complaints. Had to make a family book, so I put it into a paf file to make the book, so when I printed it, some people disappeared because of broken links. So, I had to ask, what went wrong in Green Bay, WI, what went wrong? So, we had to go into the paf file, and reconnect the missing people. This cost me a few days research and gas to run to Green Bay to remedy my problem, ancestry would have no remedy to help you.

I signed for the 14 day trial. They told me to cancel before April 4th 2010. I have been trying for three days to cancel. Will not let me cancel. Somehow they have my name changed by one letter. Lindajesse with one E. Apparently they have researched my past. They have 2 old email address I had on yahoo.com. I am an old lady and do not need the stress. I would never use this bunch of crooks. I did this because of the new TV show. I do not expect any one to help. A company like this does not care about customer service. All I wanted to cancel. I have worked hours on this. I have high blood pressure and do not need the stress. Maybe this would help the next old lady that signs up for this. Thank you.

After several failed attempts to unsubscribe from all of ancestry.com newsletters and emails, I complained to Customer Service, asking them for help and asking contextually to cancel my account from all of their databases.

After some investigation, I discovered that an illicit charge to my account from Ancestry.com was responsible. Ancestry.com charged me through my PayPal account to the amount of $323.35! Last Christmas (2008), I purchased a year membership to Ancestry.com for my wife, who was very much into genealogy at the time. I was never aware that the $300+ was an annual fee. Otherwise, I never would have purchased the membership. You can imagine my chagrin when I checked my bank balance to find they had billed me.

In late '08 and early '09, I joined Ancestry.com to prepare a family tree. I paid quarterly for almost a year. After many months of searches both online and paper trails, I finally finished. I was so proud. I saved all my research to a file on my computer (or so I thought) and made copies for my siblings for Christmas presents. My brother called me and said his copy only shows the first page. When you try to go to the next page, an advertisement for Ancestry.com pops up.

Buyer beware. They are out to get your money. I signed up for the free 7-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 is 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.

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.

Because of Ancestry.com’s 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 Muslim, where he is from. I am devastated 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 stifled. Consequence is the contractual loss because of my marriage identity.

I received an offer from Ancestry.com for a free 14-day trial. I 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. I 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 three months later and I just realized that they are still billing me $29.95 each month. I called their customer service and all they will did is refund the most recent monthly charge even though they can see through their system that I haven't used the service in three 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.

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.