Buyer Beware of Subscription Auto-Renewal on Genealogy Sites

Published April 17, 2012 | By

Online Customer Service Genealogy search sites such as Ancestry.com, Archives.com and Fold3.com can be a huge help when looking for information about long lost ancestors, but there are several things the buyer should look out for.

I decided to address these issues because of a post on scambook.com that caught my attention. This poor elderly woman had signed on for a free trial at Archives.com last year and didn’t realize that she needed to contact them and cancel before the end of the trial period. They did bill her for a subscription, but she never noticed. Then, recently, they billed her again for a renewal and when she called to question it she was surprised to find she’d been subscribed this past year. They did agree to reverse the recent charge and cancel her subscription, but said there was nothing they could do about last year’s charge.

I do not and have never agreed with negative billing. The onus should always be on the vender to either confirm with the customer prior to finalizing a negative billing purchase, or they should not be able to charge at all unless the customer gets back to them to confirm prior to the end of the trial period. Trial periods should automatically expire.

I have another issue with Archives.com. Recently I was looking for birth records for an individual and I did a search on Archives.com. The search showed several results they had listed as ‘birth records’ yet when I signed on for the free trial period to check them out, I discovered that they were not birth records at all. They were census records – which I already had. Luckily, I was already aware of the negative billing practice and immediately contacted them to cancel and told them how I felt about the misleading labeling of information in their search results.

Another issue I’ve encountered that appears to occur on all such sites is the deliberate ‘hiding’ of the information about and contact information for cancelling prior to a trial period ending. I had this issue previously on Ancestry.com, in which I spent two days struggling to find the information I needed. I was just lucky I had allowed plenty of time prior to the trial period expiration.

Document all contact with the site and keep copies of any emails in case of disputes over date of cancellation. A good way I’ve found to document an action or request is to send a follow-up email to the site confirming your wishes in writing.

Another bit of advice I’ve found valuable is to log all trial periods and subscriptions in your computer’s calendar and set an alarm for a week or two prior to the end of a full subscription and a day or two prior to a short trial subscription.

I have taken the liberty of finding the information needed to cancel for most sites, as follows:

Ancestry.com

When you first go into the main information page for a trial subscription, you will find the contact information noted to the right in fairly small print. I would suggest copying and pasting this information into a ‘stickie’ or text file along with key information about the subscription, including the terms and the end day of the trial subscription.
On the ‘contact us‘ or ‘help’ page, there is no actual cancellation instructions. do a search for “how to cancel subscription” and select “How do I cancel my Ancestry.com subscription?” for complete instructions.
If all else fails, there is a customer service telephone number noted that can be called to cancel.

Archives.com

If you’d like to not be renewed at any time in the future, contact their customer service and inform then that you wish to not be renewed at all in the future. Be sure to document the call or keep a copy of the email in case of problems.
To immediately cancel a subscription, go to the ‘subscription options‘ page.

FindMyPast.com

To change anything about your subscription, you must go to your account page.
To turn off auto-renew for your account, click on ‘Personal Details’, scroll to the bottom, and deselect ‘Auto-renew my subscription’. Be sure to send a follow-up email to document the request.

Fold3

I was unable to find specific instructions to cancel a subscription. There was also no apparent selection to not auto-renew. Be sure to contact them in advance with any such request. The only method I could find was to go to the ‘Contact Us‘ page and contact them using the telephone number listed to the right. I would also advise using their message form to send a message confirming the details of the request.

FamilyLink.com

I’m impressed. The cancellation information here was the easiest to find of all of the sites. Just click on the ‘Help‘ link and select “How do I cancel my subscription?” to find the telephone number. Again, I advise sending an email as well to confirm and document your request.

GenesReunited.com

GenesReunited.com does send renewal notices to your account inbox prior to processing payment for auto-renewal. However, this is not infallible and I do suggest following the advice I’ve outlined above. To cancel your subscription, click here and go to the Subscription Details link. Select ‘Auto Renew Off’.

OneGreatFamily

To cancel, there are several steps. First, click ‘Contact Us’ at the bottom of the main page. Then, click on ‘Frequently Asked Questions Page’. Click on ‘Account Management’, then you have two choices depending on what you’d like to do.

To cancel during the 7 day trial period, click on “How do I cancel during my 7 day trial period?“
To cancel an active subscription, click on “How do I cancel?“

WorldVitalRecords.com

As for “FamilyLink.com” above.

Posted in Ancestry.com, Archives.com, FamilyLink.com, findmypast.com, Fold3, GenesReunited.com, Location, Newspapers Archive, OneGreatFamily.com, Records, Religion, Reviews, Surnames, Tips, Tools, Transcriptions, WorldVitalRecords.com

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