Ancestry.co.uk is such a rip off!?

Question

Ive just paid to view a record ''an ancestral hint'' and it says click here to view trees or send message but when I click to view the record it goes to the ''upgrade to full membership'' I have just paid £7 to view 12 records and cannot view anything more than with the free subscription. I want to complain ASAP! This was something I had been considering doing for a long time and when it came to it - it didn't even work!!

Answer 1

you're complaining on the wrong website.

Answer 2

I have the world deluxe membership with ancestry.com/.co.uk  and to be honest with you they offer an excellent service. I personally think it's money well spent. They do rectify any problems you may have very quickly, I would give them another chance if I were you, at least talk to them it is a free phone number after all.

Answer 3

statred to do it myself till they said that it cost so i delete it easy i dont' worry about this type of site as they are fraudulant

Answer 4

The problem with Ancestry is that to get absolutely the best out of it, you already need to have got back to the year 1901 yourself so you can make the best use of the census etc, otherwise you'll just get lost and eat up credits very quickly when trying to search the BMD indexes randomly as searching all four quarters of one year would cost four credits, meaning that you would use your 12PPV credits after searching just one year either side of a random year.  There aren't any real UK  "vital records" in the strict sense of the term up online (birth, marriage and death certificates) - you still have to use the index page that you bring up to go to the GRO website and pay £7 for each certificate you want - that;s when it starts getting REALLY expensive (!!).  Some people understandably think Ancestry is therefore a bit of a con as they don't really know what they are signing up to in the first place and just what the website can offer and what each of its databases can do.  People who tell complete newcomers to genealogy to dive straight in online at Ancestry aren't really giving good advice.  You need to have some clue of what you are doing before signing up to various websites.  Not all are all their cracked up to be.

"Genes Reunited" is a good example - some of their advertising claims are pretty shoddy.  GR used to claim that they had "over 40 million names" (neglecting to include all the millions of duplicated names in trees and all the 'unknown' records plus all the joke Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck entries, not to mention all the jokers who have Adam & Eve born Garden of Eden in their trees).  In the world of advertising, truth matters very little.  They (especially since the take-over by ITV) and Ancestry are both huge corporate international conglomerates who want your cash and are in the genealogy business purely to make money.

Yes Ancestry are expensive and over-priced, but I wouldn't say their databases were no good.  Not that long ago you'd have had to travel halfway across the country to some dingy library to look at most of what Ancestry have on offer today (not to mention all the hours hunched over a microfilm reader trying to search the census for your ancestors), yet now you can do it online from the privacy of your own home in a few clicks of a mouse.  That has to be worth a few quid of anyones money.  Just as long as people realise that for recently living people it is not a simple matter of entering a name in a search engine and bringing up a record in the click of a mouse.  The process is a little more complex than that.  It requires a bit more work.  Ancestry is a tool.  A finding aid.  Nothing more, nothing less.  It must be used in conjunction with many other sources, both free and paid, to get the best out of it.

Answer 5

has ur membership been upgraded yet, it may take 24 hours for it to come into effect.

email them and double check, if its still the same complain complain complain

Answer 6

If you are seriously into family research, the full membership is expensive but nevertheless probably extremely good value for money, given how difficult it was to trace all these records even just a few years ago.  Imagine the cost of travelling to public libraries all over the place, for days on end, digging through old microfiches often to no avail.  ÃƒÂ‚£9 a month in this context is really good value.

That said, Ancestry.com do have this irritating policy of taking further lump-sums off your credit card without asking.  It is of course all explained in the small print (the responsibility is on you to read it!!!)  The smart people take out the month's free trial, harvest as much data as possible,  and then (perfectly within their rights) cancel their membership just before the end of the trial period.  This is perfectly legal and can net anyone heaps of free data.  Ancestry.com must assume most punters are idiots or else they would be losing vast amounts of money.

Answer 7

Be very careful when signing up on those "quick answer" websites - some are quite predatory and may not be very useful unless you're looking for something quite specific.

They basically lure you in with a little wisp of information - and try to get you to pay more and more.  Its a very poor gimmick and something that I believe will ultimately cost them in terms of a loss of customers.

Other websites have their own faults too - such as getting you to subscribe for a list of certain years.. things you don't need.  Make sure you check with others in your genealogical community before subscribing to anything else on the internet.   Real researchers - real people will help you steer clear of the moneymaking scams, perhaps even pointing you out to site where information sharing is free.

Answer 8

Absolutely!!!  If you're in the UK check your local library, down here in Devon is free to access Ancestry.com from their computer.  It helped me no end to find bits of information, but it certainly isn't worth the money they ask for.

Answer 9

As it's a UK company you can go to the Small Claims Court if you feel you have been conned, or if the advertising was untrue.

Answer 10

If you are not happy with Ancestry (which incidentally is not a British company) and if you just want to view Census, Birth, Marriage, Deaths, Parish Records, Non-conformist Records, Pre 1837 Birth Records, Land Records, Military Records and Directories. etc., for England, The Genealogist is a much better bet.

http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk

http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/help/cre...

For trees and contacts, Genes Reunited cannot be beaten.

Standard membership is about £9.95 for 6 months.

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk

Answer 11

Ancestry Library Edition is free to access in any public library in the UK. There may be a limitation with regards to some of the records you can access but for the most part I think most of their records are available to view free this way. For most would-be genealogists researching their own family tree the public access to Ancestry Library should be adequate. Ask for a refund and give the Library version a try. You can be at a computer for up to two hours and then you will need to sign out but you can book the computer again later in the day, usually.  

Best wishes.

Answer 12

Not only are they a rip off they are also one of those cimpanies that if you sign up for a "free trial" and don't cancel it after use they automaticly start charging you the next month.  Its hidden away in the small print that no one reads.  Hate them, so yeah complain make sure it cancelled you can't figure much out from it anyway.

Answer 13

Hi,

I belong to Ancestry.co.uk, and have never had a problem with them. I only pay £9.95 on a monthly basis, and if there has ever been a hiccup on their site they have either reimbursed me or given me a free months subscription in lieu.

Perhaps you ought to give them a call, and ask them about what has happened. If you are pleasant about the problem I am sure you will get satisfaction from them. Their number is 0800 404 9723 for their customer services.

Hope you have some joy.