Ancestry Reviews

I spoke with a Kimberly who was pleasant at first but once I asked for a refund, she started getting louder and louder. I told her that she was getting really loud but she just continued telling me their policies. I asked to speak to a supervisor three times before she let me. I then spoke with William who was very calm and pleasant. I then told him about the woman my wife had talked to and what she had said. He said that my account had not been looked at by anyone that day. I then told him that Kimberly had looked at it and knew my wife's name. He then said the account had been accessed twice, once by Kimberly and once by him. It really didn't make sense to me that Kimberly would have known my wife's name even though it was never on the account. I do believe they, (William) lied to me (more than once but definitely that time).

I never received an email that the account had been activated and that I would now be billed nor did I receive an email each month about the billing as I should have. When I talked to Kimberly she knew my email and username but when I talked to William, he gave me a username that I did not know about. I have a programmable keyboard and use a macro to enter my user name and password for everything I do. For some reason the username Ancestry.com had for me was jumbled and letters were added. It was only three letters off or two, William spelled it different the second time he spelled it some 15 minutes later in the conversation. Why out of three game accounts, Twitter, Facebook, Photobucket, four email accounts and about a dozen blogs and forums, Ancestry.com had a different username than what my macro puts in makes no sense to me. And I log onto all those other accounts all the time and never have an issue.

I explained this to William and suggested they might have had a server glitch or something that garbled the data once it was received. He said I should have asked for my username. I told him I had cancelled and thought the reason I couldn't log on was because they had locked out the premium service to me. I would never have thought my username was different. I also told him I had never used the service which he confirmed. In the end they said they would refund the last three months. Still, this is a company that will activate your account and charge you and not send you an email about any of their billing. I also know I cancelled it and never received a cancellation email. I lost around $140.

A family emergency prevented me from trying again until October of 2008. Again, no luck and I was not able to access anything. So, I decided it probably hadn't registered and I put it out of my mind, thinking I would check on it later. However, I never got back to it. On July 15, 2009 my credit card was charged $155.40. As I was never issued a password, which is necessary to cancel service, I feel there was no contract, therefore I should never have been charged.

Does Ancestry retain credit card numbers long after the need and have no way to remove?

In early December of 2004, after logging into Ancestry.com, I noticed under store Orders they listed the last 4 digits of all my credit cards used in the past in the same format as listed under My account update credit card information. I sent an email on December 23 to requesting that all my credit card information be removed. On Jan. 2, 2005 after receiving no response, I forwarded the same email with a request Is this request being processed as requested? Please respond.

On Jan 3, 2004 someone at Ancestry.com phoned me. The rep first tried to tell me the info was in cookies on my computer which I knew was not true, He then tried to tell me they only had the last four digits and I also was certain this was not true. He then told me he would have to delete my account and I said OK. At first I could not log in so I thought my account was deleted but it didn't take me long to learn that all he did was add the word broken after my login ID. While learning this I also learned they had the last four digits of the credit cards I used for my last 2 purchases of FTM at Genealogy.com.

On March 21 I again sent an email requesting removal and received this reply along with an offer of a free membership:

In order to protect our customer's financial information, we encrypt all credit card information and do not allow agents to view full credit card numbers. An agent is allowed to view a small portion of a customer's credit card in order to verify the card usage, but not the whole numerical string.

An agent has the capability of changing the default credit or debit card that a customer uses, can update customer information like address, username, email address and password, but does not have the ability to delete a customer's financial information from our records.

We have to keep financial information on file (encrypted and stored on secure severs) for tax reasons, but as I mentioned previously, we do not give that information out, nor can our agents access it.

If you have additional questions or concerns about our business practices, please feel free to contact me.

I replied that their agent that called was not truthful and that there was NO LAW state or federal that required them to keep my credit card numbers. I also stated what I thought of their business practices and that I had all the numbers for credit card numbers in their files changed so what they had was now useless.

You know, I never did get a response to that email or the free subscription.

Some time later [and due to my Post Polio Syndrome]I elected not to re-subscribe to the outfit.

Along about March/April of 2004 a representative of the company [Ancestry] called my home and asked if I didn't want to continue my membership and I told him no. He asked if he could call back in a couple of months and I told him there was no need for that, as I would not be changing my mind.

After discovery that Ancestry had billed me In June of 2005 I called their 1-800 number. After some time waiting I got a real person on the line. She told me that my subscription of 2004 had run out in June and accordingly Ancestry had reenlisted me. And, after some stressful time spent with the lady, I was able [I guess] to convince her of the fact I did not elect to re-subscribe in 2004 nor 2005. She agreed to have the $129.79 chg removed from the charge acct.

Now, I find my chg acct statement of July 2004 and lo and behold they've charged me for a year then too [$119.90.]

I had told them I didn't want that subscription re-newed and they did it anyway.

One thing that is soooo fraudulent in my case is that I was never able to use Ancestry.com after I told them I didn't want to subscribe any longer unless I signed up as a guest. For that you get only the free information [which isn't much.]

How did One World Tree get my personal information and who do I contact to have it removed?
I could use a lot of expletives here, but I believe the Mormons are a wierd cult, and their practice of Sealing Dead ancestors is ghoulish. How do I get our names off their list. Please, please, please help.

I don't want to be baptised by these monsters after I am gone!!!

Just the idea of the Mormons baptizing my mother, my grandmother, even my Jewish grandparents who survived the holocaust,
to their beliefs, would have made their skin crawl, as it does mine. As they have my information, too.

I am extremely upset that my information, that I put on my site, for FAMILY RESEARCH only, has been stolen by the LDS and selling it!!!!

I am ready to stop my research due to this incident, which means the loss of a hobby, that I found interesting and relaxing. I have high bloodpressure and now it is off the charts.

I called back two days later to cancel and spoke to Darren, and I was informed that I had been charged $289.80 for my subscription. Apparently, Jonathan forgot to mention that Free for 7 days was actually a we'll charge you $289.80 today and if you cancel in the next few days, we'll credit your account This made me furious!

Jonathan blatently LIED about the 7 day free trial. When I say Yes to a free trial offer, I expect it to be just that, not $290! I spoke to Jarod, the supposed manager, who basically was of no help. I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

$289.80 charged to my credit card unauthorized. As of today, have not received my credit. I am disputing the charges with my credit card company.

Reviewed contract nothing stated about a cancellation fee, only that refunds will not be made, despite at no risk guarantee upon