What two things do Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com, Family Tree Maker software and a number of other genealogy-related website and products have in common? One is that they are all happily members of the same corporate family under "parent" company MyFamily.com Inc. The other is that they share a family trait of generating gripes from customers about sneaky credit card charges.
Last year I wrote about complaints I was hearing primarily about Ancestry.com's turning monthly subscriptions into automatically-renewing annual subscriptions. While Ancestry.com did subsequently clarify some of the more misleading promotional pages on its website, its "evergreen" terms and conditions remain the same, as apparently do at least some of its practices.
"I have just received my credit card statement with a charge of $99 for a subscription that I didn't order," wrote a reader who last ordered a Genealogy.com subscription over three years before. "I found a phone number this morning and called them. They said all subscriptions are renewable unless the customer called and cancelled." After she complained she was told the money, including an earlier charge from the year, will be refunded. "The phone number I called is 1 (800) 548-1806. Maybe you can post this in your website and hopefully it will help others."
Many continue to complain that the fourteen-day "free trial" seems to actually last about fourteen minutes. "I wish I'd read your article before signing up for the free trial offer," wrote one Ancestry.com customer. "It took me just one session to discover that their database didn't have the records for the families they claimed ... I immediately called to tell them I wanted to cancel. So sorry, wrong number -- I should check my sales receipt for the proper number to call. What sales receipt? This is supposed to be a free trial. By the time I was finally referred to the 'cancellation hotline,' they said I was too late so I might as well use it for the year."
Perhaps he was lucky - some customers have found that canceling means they lose both the subscription and the money. "I subscribed to Genealogy.com for one year a little over a year ago," wrote a reader who mistakenly thought she could just let her subscription expire. "So I was surprised when the charge for another year showed up on my credit card statement. Today I called because my credit card had not been credited yet and was informed that since I cancelled outside of the 'seven-day window' there was no credit. What a scam. I didn't know they were going to automatically charge my credit card for another year, so how could I have cancelled within the seven days? Also, when I called to cancel they did not tell me I wouldn't get a refund. If they had I would have cancelled at the end of the new subscription. As it is I don't have site access and I don't have my money."
Given how easily they turn into evergreen credit card charges, it would be wise to look all gift horses from MyFamily.com in the mouth. "The Family Tree Maker 2005 Collector's Edition includes one-year subscriptions to the U.S. Records and One World Tree collections," another reader noted. "I tried to access same and was prompted to give a credit card number to view them. There is no mention of the requirement on the packaging at the point of sale. Isn't this bait-and-switch?"
Maybe so, and one reader discovered some of the bait is just so much manure. "Before paying for a subscription, I decided to check for data on Ancestry.com's newspaper articles site," she wrote. "Several items appeared each time I entered various uncommon given names in my family. Realizing this was not probable, I decided to try entering (a word meaning canine excrement) as the surname. Sure enough, it brought up half a dozen newspaper articles it said referenced people by that name. I exited out of the website at that point, but not before I had typed in my personal info, so I'm still getting spam from them. Kind of scary."
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