Archives

We are sending in complaints to the FBI, the Utah State AG, the CA State AG, the BBB, as this is a shell front for identity thieves.

They operate by sending your request for data to a legitimate site, returning those records, then you sign up, and as they have nothing else nothing to offer, they request you enter your Card again, for the SIlver Gold or Platinum service, and if you do, there's always nothing, and another sign up "come-on".

We have all their email responses, and our email promises to take them to court. We have been told they are a front for very clever IDENTITY THIEVES. Remember this fraudulent service is one people think is legit, and enter sensitive family information...

If you have given them your credit card, contact your financial institution, have it cancelled IMMEDIATELY. And watch for unusal charges.

I have been trying to cancel for 3 months now. Everytime I call it is a 20 minute wait and they cant find my account. But they have no issues charging my account every month... FRAUD, DONT DO IT

I did the free "test" search on my ggrandfather's name which indicated document were available within the Archives database. Once I paid for a membership and did the same search, NO documents were in their database for the same name. False advertising! Then I did a search on my ggrandmother, birth entered as 1840 +/- 2yrs. Archives search engine returned 101 hits! 100 of the 101 were from the "LIVE persons" database (the other one was on the surname itself). This would make my grandmother 175 years old. NOTHING about her should be located here. This site is a major waste of money and a scam. I GAVE THIS SITE ONE STAR BECAUSE IT WOULD NOT ACCEPT ZERO STARS.

Came across the clickthrough ad for this website, while working on another similar website. They advertise that a credit card is not needed. I started to join, but did NOT consumate the sales and THEY STILL CHARGED MY CREDIT CARD. When I called them to dispute the charge, they start telling me all sorts of stuff. I had to go to the credit card company to dispute this charge.

I paid $69.00 for documents three months ago and every time I contact them I get excuses an apologies. I have requested a refund twice now. THEY WILL STEAL YOUR MONEY!

Signed up for a free 7 day trial on 5/16. Had to enter credit card info so I gave them my PayPal business debit card. Canceled on 5/23, they confirmed via email that my membership privileges were canceled as of 5/23. WITHIN THE SEVEN DAYS. On 5/24 they attempted to take $7.95 out of my PayPal account AND to take $49.95 out. No money in account (debit card) so that failed. They tried again five more times in the next month. During that month long period I repeatedly:

1) called their 800 number only to be told by a live person that their computers were down and they couldn't access my records.
2) went on-line and canceled (receiving an on-screen confirmation that I would not be billed anymore and that I had no payment record on file)
3) sent them an email requesting they stop billing me

As of yesterday, June 27th, they were still trying to bill my PayPal Debit card for $49.95. I have deliberately swept all of my money out of my PayPal account while this is going on because I am not going to let these crooks steal $49.95 of my money.

Today, June 28th, I finally reported my PayPal debit card stolen and asked for a replacement.

These people are either incompetent, or crooks, or both. Whatever - don't make the mistake of giving them your financial information, you WILL regret it.

Here is the "latest" scam from AncestryDotcom.

I enrolled in Ancestry and dutifully gave them a CC#. I cancelled within 5 days and got the confirmation of the cancellation and the $39.95 never appeared on my CC bill.

However, they gave my CC # to a "marketing partner" called One Great Family (OGF) who immediately charged my account for $59.88. I called OGF who immediately cancelled my membership but couldn't refund my money. Instead I was referred back to Ancestry.

At this point, I could see what was going to happen, so I called Visa and filed a dispute on the charge. They blocked the charge until they could investigate,

Then came the "finishing touch". Someone, probably Ancestry, sold my CC# and the buyer started using it. Thankfully Visa sensed fraud and called me. I told them that I had not made the charges and Visa shut down the account and will be reversing all the charges.

For the record, I'm filing a complaint with the Feds and with my State Attorney General.

This fraud has to stop.

If I could, I would give Ancestry and One Great Family MINUS 5 stars.

The site doesn't work. It's got so many technical glitches it's ridiculous. Why would anyone pay for such a service.

Company will charge your credit card even after you cancel. When you call they say "Too Bad" and refuse to credit your account.
DO NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS SERVICE!

I will have patience and hopefully the mistakes by charging my card will be corrected ASAP! I had no results btw

You will never EVER EVER be able to get them to stop charging you. I'm going to turn them in to BBB. Do yourself a favor and avoid them like the plague!

Do not sign up to any ‘free trial'. If like me you thought this was part of Ancestry you have been scammed and it will cost you to cancel

I was searching for information on myy grandfather and Archives.com showed that they had found the information I was looking for. It showed an official looking document with my grandfather's name on it but over the body of the form was the Archives for that said that I would have to sign up for a membership to view the file. So I did only when the document opened it was for a woman from Kentucky not my grandfather from Mississippi. I realized this was a fraudulent company and immediately email them to cancel my membership. The next day I followed up with a phone call since I had received several emails over night welcoming me but no acknowledgement of the cancellation. I was assured the account was cancelled.
Today I noticed that they had billed my account. So I called and got some very rude woman, Holley who very impolitely explained to me that this was my fault because I had multiple accounts with them over the years and that when I cancelled this membership it had been applied to an account that I opened in July last year (I was on a "no technology" vacation in a mountain cabin at the time and couldn't have opened this account). I pointed out that I had not been billed in all this time and she then tells me that that account was closed by email immediately after opening. So, why would the cancellation I requested in August of 2015 be applied to a closed account from July 2014? No answer for that and she will process the claim to refund my charges - in 3-5 business days not immediately.
Whatever you do STAY AWAY FROM ARCHIVES.COM!

I was in a rush to get a copy of my birth certificate so i found this website archives.com thinking they would help me. I know there are alot of women in the world with my name but my bday and social is who i say i am. They did NOT have any record of me anywhere. Okay i made sure i tried my married name (pointless) but i had to try, also made sure my city and state hospital i was born at was all in there and guess what? NOTHING they wanted me to sign up for a monthly thing okay i just needed it for that one time and i can Always cancel. Well wen i didnt find what i REALLY NEEDED they charged my card $9.99... so i complained with my bank received a new card and everything and now just today i see a charge ON MY NEW CARD $9.99! Not to mention they didnt have my email on file what kind of $#*! it that? I signed up with my regular email and they dont have it on file? So i called them of course they have no one to talk to other than a stupid robot so they never canceled the first time i asked them to. Im beyond pissed off and im actually going to be passing this along to my lawyer & the fbi as well as the BBB... for anyone please listen to the other reviews this isnt worth your time or anything. Let alone they do not deserve any money!

In original search told me it had the records that I needed but I had to sign up and give cc details
Once done there was no records as advertised

I signed up for a free 7 day trial with archive.com. I wasn't all that impressed with the results, but decided to give it a try a bit longer figuring it might be useful the further I got into my family history. About six months later I realized I had forgot to cancel and they were still billing me every month. Completely my fault and so I took care of it. I thought anyway. Got a confirmation email after I canceled and figured everything was fine.

I am the only one with access to my debit card and I admit I don't check the statements frequently. So today when I got online to take a look I realized they had been billing me this entire time. I called the number and was on hold for over 10 minutes. When I finally got someone, she acted like I was a complete idiot. She was rude and pretty much immediately went on the defense saying that it was my fault for not checking my bank statements regularly! (I got the feeling that this isn't the first time they have had this complaint, as she got defensive before she even took a look at my account.)

I gave her my email so she could check the account and she found where the account had been canceled. Yet instead of apologizing and agreeing to refund the money, she told me that the most she could do was refund the past three months, as it was against company policy to do more than that.

I asked her how she can justify that when it was obvious that the account had been canceled and they were basically stealing money from me.

Her reply "There is no way for us to know that you are still being billed as we don't have access to your bank statements. Had you checked your statements and brought it to our attention this all could have been avoided."

I did agree to the refund for three months, but I do not intend to let this go. This website is nothing but a scam and they should be shut down! There is no telling how many other people they have done this too. For me I'm currently out around $80 for an account that I never got one single record from and that I made sure to cancel.

Also want to point out that removing your debit/credit card information from your archives account does nothing! They have that information and will continue billing you even with the information removed.

I try to cancel after the trial but they disregard my wish to cancel. I still don't know if they cancel it. I have done twice.

HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE. DO NOT GIVE ARCHIVES.COM YPUR CREDIT CARD! Requested a certified copy of my parents marriage certificate from the New York City Clerk of Courts. They said it would take up to 2 months to get. So I came to Archives.com because they misleadingly seem to say that they can get your records and expedite them much faster. So I paid $181 for 3 copies thinking I would get them within a couple of weeks. However... ONLY after you pay does an invoice state that it will take 74 days for Archives.com to get the copies. I even paid (sucker) an additional $12 to "expedite" the records but again ONLY after you pay do they state how long it will take. At that point there is no way to cancel. To make matters worse, Archives.com outsources the whole thing to a third party - USVital. Numerous phone calls to their "customer service" go straight to a voice mail that promises to call you back within 4 hours. None of my calls or emails were returned for 2 days until I left a last message saying I would dispute the charges. Only then someone from another agency calls me to tell me "too bad - we don't care about any of this - your out of luck." HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE. SERVICE AND BORDERLINE SCAM. DO NOT USE ARCHIVES.COM.

Never gives refund. VERY RUDE customer service. Records are from personal research previously added.

I canceled my membership, but they still charged my account. I am disputing the charge with PayPal and going to contact the Better Business Bureau.

In the fall of 2013 I did some rapid-fire genealogical research towards my sister's 40th birthday, to gift her a fuller tree. I used several sites including fold3.com, rootsireland.ie, & ancestry.com. Re: ancestry.com, I took the 14-day free trial, cancelled on Day 14 and had no troubles. However, I did begin to see $7.95 charges this spring in reviewing our 2013 charges for archives.com. I do not have any record (neither email confirmation or registration, any emails thereafter from them re: marketing, nor any cancellation emails... neither any records in my Password Wallet) of having registered with archives.com. NONE.

They claim I did. They have a date, a mere 2 weeks out from my sister's birthday, by which I had completed my work for the season. At this point, in April, they only allowed a one-month refund of THIS month's charge, but said Monthly Memberships Are Nonrefundable. I understand that, for someone who registered intentionally--which I did not. It is in the fine print. That is all well & good. BUT, I did NOT ever register for a monthly subscription, nor do I have any evidence of having registered for a short-term trial.

I suspect that their partner, ancestry.com, shared my information, or that via ancestry.com I referenced an item on the archives.com site, and thereby the two accounts linked in some way, yet I did not click the archives.com button.

Regardless, it would be no skin off their nose to give me the 8 months' refund, when their records can surely demonstrate that I have NOT used their site at all since August 2013. So, what's $60 to a massive company? Apparently, it's a lot, b/c I cannot get it back.

DO NOT EVEN GO TO THEIR SITE. I am terribly disappointed. I agree with the reports below mine that something is rotten in the state of Utah.

1 look up, didn't sign up for service, they made 5 withdrawals from my bank account, UNAUTHORIZED!

DO NOT OPEN THE WEBSITE, YOU WILL BE CHARGED!

STAY AWAY FROM THIS SITE! This is a $#*!ing scam! They don't provide anything you need and IGNORED my request for subscription reversal!