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NewspaperArchive has a rating of 1.5 stars from 60 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about NewspaperArchive most frequently mention customer service, credit card, and search engine problems. NewspaperArchive ranks 1180th among News sites.
This company does not typically respond to reviews
Having a recent need to research a celebrity from the 1950s, I needed an online newspaper archive. newspaperarchive.com is a U.S. based organisation that delivers what they claim: an archive of (mainly) U.S. newspapers from ancient (at least the 1920s) to more recent days. Their interface is a bit clunky, but navigable and their prices are vastly more reasonable than many similar sites. When I went to cancel my 12 month subscription early (because I had sucked down everything they had that I needed) they surprised me by saying that I could continue accessing the site until the subscription actually expired. I did appreciate that.
I was charged without even asking to try the service. A charge of $103 suddenly appeared on my bank account. It is listed as pendin but woukd have hone through if I hadn't spotted it. I have never had any business with newspaperarchive.com and never will.
Downloading is so slow, it makes research tobe impossible. Thankfully, I have only taken out a day's pass but having spent an hour and a half to access three pages, I'm giving up the ghost. My internet speed is very fast and I have no difficulties with all other sites I browse.
Tip for consumers:
Avoid like the plague
If only i had read reviews first! Tried to renew my script for a specific purpose. They have my card information. No way to speak with anyone. Chat doesnt work. Membership has not started. Will have to report fraud. Wasted whole day.
Tip for consumers:
if this is not a scam it sure acts like one. no customer service, no recourse at all
Hello Peggy,
We're sorry to hear you've had a poor experience with us! I've reviewed your message and the chat history and would be happy to provide some clarification and assistance.
First, I would sincerely apologize for the issue you experienced when attempting to chat with one our agents. I reviewed the history and there was a short time during the period you contacted us in which agent availability was not accurately shown. The issue should not happen again and we're following up on your email to get in touch with you.
Otherwise the purchase you attempted to make did not go through under your email address you provided. You have no active subscription and no charge in relation to it. If you have received any charge, please us know at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'd be happy to assist you further.
Company operates on a bait and switch process. The main page offered "free for 7days" but when you get into subscription plans they hide that only two of the three plans are free for 7 days. When you select the cheapest plan, they charge you 24 hours later. Emeline in customer service made it clear they stand behind the scam and refused to refund.
Hello Mike,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! To address your grievances, I would mention that we try be as straightforward as possible with how we advertise our subscription plans, especially in regards to our 7 Day Free Trial offers. We specifically clarify that we do not offer a 7 Day Free Trial on our Monthly subscription plan, and we also clarify throughout the billing process and on the confirmation page that you will be immediately charged for your chosen subscription. While we do sympathize with that misunderstanding, it's likely that your account use after purchase made it ineligible for a full refund, either due to a certain number of images viewed, or images downloaded in the following days.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
Could not find pricing on website so I emailed and asked and said could not find anywhere on price. The rude rep writes back...". You mention in your email that NOWHERE in the site the prices for the subscriptions are placed/visible.
I beg to differ:" Wow! Never will deal with these people.
MJ,
The price is shown in very large font right across the top of the subscription page. Our subscription is $49.95 for 6 months of full access. Here is how it appears:
Begin your 6 month premium, unlimited membership for $49.95 USD.
I know it can be hard to take in everything, but we do our very best to inform people before they begin a subscription.
Best wishes, Christian
Requested the website to remove my old name listed in an article which appears in google search. I made payment and requested for a removal of the listing. It went past by 30 days and no resolution yet. I attempted to contact customer service sending over 10 e-mails and still no response. Attempted to contact director and phone describe in BBB does not work. This company doesn't have any customer service or phone contact info. The emails gets generated by an automatic online assistant, which it goes to nowhere. This website is a completely a scam and not sure why BBB hasn't taken down the website with so many complains.
Hello Flower,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! NewspaperArchive.com was purchased since the time of your review, and is under new ownership. We do sympathize with your frustrations however, and if you have any outstanding issues, please feel free to reach out and we'd be happy to assist you.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
Do NOT sign up for their 'free' trial. Their seven day count is only 6 days. They do not tell you it is a twice yearly charge. When they informed me my 'free' trial was about to expire, I emailed them telling them I wished to cancel. Imagine my shock to see the charge on my card. They also do not tell you how much they are going to charge! Way too expensive for the poor quality of information. I am trying to get my $ back, but not holding my breath!
Christopher James sucks, he forgets he is suppose to be representing his company. Can't get ahold of anyone, they hid behind the web.
I would like to know how they can have such a high rating when nothing about this company is worth 100 a year
Shirley,
I'm sorry for your experience. Yes, our company has an outstanding rating overall. We do what we say we will do. We offer 1/3 billion pages of historical newspapers and obituaries and add several million more each month. We work very hard to honor our Terms and Conditions with the nearly 3 million visitors to our site each month.
Best wishes, Christian
Has to be the worst search engine I have ever used, if it gives you 100 results for 'must contain' half will only contain one of your key words and of the other 50 expect 1/3 will be duplicates of the same article.
Paul,
At the time you used our site it wasn't the search engine that was wrong. All your results did contain exactly what you wanted. However, our search snippets were not showing the correct hit. That has been corrected.
Yes, our site does have what appears to be duplicate content for some titles but this is at the request of the newspaper publisher. They print many different editions and want all their editions archived, but some pages are identical. We present them all since they are in fact different newspapers and some of the content on the page may be different.
Thanks for trying NewspaperArchive.com. Christian
There is no customer service, they don't answer the phone or emails. The chat box doesn't work. I have called and left multiple messages to cancel and multiple emails that are never answered. They are still charging my credit card even after I have submitted fraud reports to my credit card company and they have tried to contact NewspaperArchive directly. This is a lifetime commitment! Don't do it!
Tip for consumers:
They have no customer service (literally!)
Sometimes the site works and sometimes not. The only way to contact the company for help is sending an email which takes them 24 hours to respond. So if their solution to your problem doesn't work you wait another 24 hours for solution #2. Waste of time and money.
Hello,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! We were re-structuring our customer support at that time which affected availability of agents. Additionally, we had a stability issue around that time that likely contributed to your issues, however it has since been rectified. If you have any outstanding issues, please let me know.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
I hate finding I can only access records if I sign up for an auto-renewing subscription and then find I can access my account to cancel. The quality of the newspaper images is very poor - the one record which I found that was relevant to my research was illegible. Don't waste your money - there are better sites available. Tried to cancel my sub today only to find I can't even access the website! I was looking for Australian records and then discovered Trove - which is free and better
Cathryn,
Yes, Trove is a wonderful site for old Australian content. NewspaperArchive.com has content from 29 countries including all 50 states in America. We add 5 million pages a month to the archive and have more than 10,000 titles online - we also have more than 100 million obituaries online from many sources that are updated monthly. The quality of our images does vary as they come from many different library partners but the highest quality image is available only by clicking the diskette icon and selecting Download as PDF, so perhaps you didn't try that.
If you would like help to cancel your subscription just send us an email and we will do it for you: customerservice@newspaperarchive.com.
NewspaperArchive.com Customer Service
Trusted them with sensitive credit card information. They failed to activate my account. Customer service hours are a joke. Far below acceptable standards of internet business. Never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never pay for this "service."
Tip for consumers:
THAT THEY ARE A SCAM
Hello Marshall,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! To address your points however, I am happy to clarify that any billing information provided in regards to an account or subscription is handled in a secure, and protective manner. However, I'm afraid your issue with failing to activate your account does not sound familiar as all subscriptions are activated immediately after purchase, and would not require our assistance in doing so. Otherwise while we are not providing live support (at the moment), though we do provide email support 9 AM to 5 PM CST Monday through Friday, and we would be happy to assist you.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
Well, I did a google search for a relative, and the name popped up as an obituary. I decided to register for a 7 day trial, I got billed for 6 months, but it was a gift card, so, no great loss.
It turns out that the "result" that they gave was not in their database, it was a generic snippet, probably from the SSDI.
I did 10 searches in a few minutes, nothing I looked for was available.
Cancelled.
Tom,
We don't have a 7 day trial. If you did register and then cancel within a few minutes as you say then you are eligible for a full refund - you are eligible for a full refund for up to 30 days if you don't save 2 or more pages of premium content. Please let us know if you didn't receive your refund.
Yes, we do have SSDI death notices in our archives which are clearly labelled as "from the United States Social Security Death Index". These are very helpful for many visitors and the bottom of each page contains a link to every article we have about that person during their life.
Best wishes, Christian
What a JOKE of a website! They sucker you into thinking your signing up for free viewing of old news articles and after you complete the initial form it send you to a page that wants credit card info but if you decline to pay their unrealistic fees and try to delete your email and other info it holds you hostage and won't release the page!
Thank god my email is set to "exclusive" and I'm sure these jerks will fill my "JUNK" folder.
Have an account, search find what I am looking for but won't let me load it telling me I have to sign up for an account. Tried to cancel and then up but won't let me. I like this site and this is my first issue but there is no where to call only send email. Poor customer service
Hello Cheryl, we're sorry to hear you're experiencing a technical issue! We've implemented some new upgrades to our login process, however a small portion of our users have experienced the issue you're experiencing now. We're expecting to have the issue resolved by tomorrow, and we sincerely appreciate your patience as we work to resolve the issue.
If you continue to experience the issue, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
All I wanted was to get a copy of my grandfather's obituary and they want to charge for it. I found it on Google. They have several copies of it since it ran in all the local nearby papers and they insist I have to join to view their content. Why?
Tip for consumers:
They have a ton of stuff but you will have to subscribe to read it.
Hello Erik,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! NewspaperArchive.com was purchased since the time of your review, and is under new ownership. We do sympathize with your frustrations however, and if you have any outstanding issues, please feel free to reach out and we'd be happy to assist you.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
I guess there is no customer service associated with this website. Too bad that I didn't realize this until too late. Do not do business with this company. They do not respond to any type of communication.
Jan,
Simply untrue.
We handle several hundred customer interactions a day in minutes. Just email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com
NewspaperArchive®
Search engine is the WORSTt I've ever used. Terms and conditions very tricky and impossible to get any resolution to poor results. They claim I signed up and requested refund which they claim I was given. Then the second time I signed up (why would I sign up again if not happy the first time?) That I used the search engine. I admit I used the search engine because they sent an email claiming they had new results for a search I did. The so called finds were only for the person's middle initial and not even the first or last name.
The view was also very poor.
Just stay away.
Hello,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! NewspaperArchive.com was purchased since the time of your review, and is under new ownership. We do sympathize with your frustrations however, and if you have any outstanding issues, please feel free to reach out and we'd be happy to assist you.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
I saw site that said that this was similar to another site. It's not. This company is horrible. The site doesn't work very well and there is no customer service. Instead there is a Chatrobot that refers you to the same video no matter what your question. It then asks you to give it a thumbs up. Right after I signed up, I was told that I was cancelled. I then wanted to be canceled, but was told that I had to pay for a month. Absolute garbage. They should be shut down.
Hello David,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! NewspaperArchive.com was purchased since the time of your review, and is under new ownership. We do sympathize with your frustrations however, and if you have any outstanding issues, please feel free to reach out and we'd be happy to assist you.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
Signed up for trial. Poor search engine. Pick lists don't work. "Chatted" with customer service rep. Generic answers, no depth. I wish I would have read the reviews first. Live and learn.
Bee,
Our search engine is the same as used by most companies in the world. If the pick lists didn't work for you it was because your session over the internet to our servers was interrupted (by your local service provider). Just hit refresh.
All new members have 30 days to seek a full refund in case they aren't satisfied.
Thanks for trying NewspaperArchive.com. Christian
THIS IS THE WORST COMPANY OUT THERE. Lousy search, Zero results. I demanded a refund 5 minutes after signing up and the customer service came back and said "you used the site, we're keeping your money". Now I never ever even ask for refunds because I feel you get what you pay for but in this case, it was NOT as promised and I knew right away - this company should close up it provides NO value.
Hello,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! While we try to be as flexible as possible in issuing refunds, it's likely that there was simply too many images viewed and/or images downloaded for you to qualify for one. We do sympathize with your frustration however, and in the future would highly recommend using our Publications tool to review our available holdings for certain states and dates before subscribing to ensure our services are for you.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
They had promised to remove an article -- and lied through their teeth. The good news is that some in the media are apparently looking at their sleazy practices
We make no promises about removing content. Each request is reviewed upon its own merit and the applicable laws in that jurisdiction.
Chris wrote there was "nothing" wrong with my account and they did try to help me. Yes he did send me a link to reset my password after I suggested it and after he cancelled my account. Yes, it is true that I was unable to log in and unable use the search engine. I wasn't lying just to close my account and get a refund. I "wouldn't" do something like that. I wanted to log in. I "wanted" to be able to use it. But newspaperarchives.com was fined $100,000 in 2016 for deceptive practices.
Doris,
We were fined nothing for deceptive practices. The company settled out of court with the Iowa Attorney General with no wrongdoing in 2015. We broke no laws whatsoever and we paid a negotiated settlement to end the issue and move on. How that settlement applies to your issues is that it does not. You still have your account, you still have the access for which you paid, and you have a new password.
On May 9,2019 I was logged in and for awhile everything was great and then suddenly I was unable to see any newspapers. I logged out and logged back in and even rebooted my computer. I sent a customer service ticket and told them what happened. I did this several times. They kept telling me nothing was wrong and I said yes there is. My final request was to let them let me reset my password which they didn't. They kept sending me my old password which I hadn't used in years. I told them that. I finally said either fix it or let me cancel my account and give me whatever money I had left because if I couldn't use it I shouldn't have let my money go toward the rest of my subscription if I couldn't use it. They finally told me there was nothing wrong and they cancelled my account which was subscribed until September and told me I wouldn't get a refund. So I have a cancelled account that is good until September but can't use it. Interesting. I agree with poster and would give zero star rating if I could. They treated me as if I was stupid or lying even though I used their site many times. Well not anymore. They even had their toll free customer phone number cancelled so that alone should speak volumes.
INTERNET THIEVES DONT SUBSCRIBE TO ANY OFFER FOR ANY ACCESS
YOU WILL BE RIPPED OFF! NO REFUNDS!
Clicked on a "Free Trial" Offer but was never prompted for a "Free Trail" I continued to fill out my credit card information and most sites typically require. Free Trial Option Was Never Offered Charged my card $23 for a full month THERE ARE NO REFUNDS FOR A MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION! Also I Ran My Search (since I was charged) NO RESULTS! Out Of A 140 Year Old Newspaper That is Currently Still Published today 2023 - THEY ONL HAD ARCHIVES FROM 1940 to 1947! What a RIP OFF! Basically INTERNET THEIVES!
COMPANY INFO: World Archives 5314 N River Run Dr #110, Provo, Utah, *******, US
Tip for consumers:
Got Ripped Off! No Service Provided, No "Free Trial" Offered As Advertised, No Results, No Product. It Was A Newpaper Archives Service That Only Had SEVEN YEARS FROM EIGHTY-THREE YEARS AGO! Not Exactly "up to date" And! The "Archives" Were From 1940 to 1947 For A News Paper That was Established in 1867! And it still published today 2023! Where Are The Other
ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE YEARS!?!?!
Hello Kevin,
We're sorry to hear you've had a poor experience with our services! I've reviewed your feedback and I'll be trying my best to assist you and provide some clarification.
Unfortunately we only offer a 7 Day Free Trial on our 6 Month and 1 Year subscription plans at this time, which is why you received an immediate charge when purchasing a Monthly plan. We provide clarification about this distinction on the subscription landing page as well as in the following billing pages (what charge you're going to receive, when, what your renewal will be, etc.). Account information was not provided, so I'm unable to pull up your account for reference, but Monthly subscriptions are normally ineligible for refunds.
In regards to your issues with the publication in question, I would mention that we provide a full index of all of our publications within our archives without requiring a subscription. Therefore, anyone is more than welcome to review the current holdings we have to ensure we have the newspapers you're looking for. Both our Publications tool and Browse tools would be helpful in that regard.
If we can provide any additional clarification or assistance, please reach out to us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
They have records essential to genealogists but DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM. They charge outrageously and has no customer service and finds listings in papers but when pulled up screen in blank. PLEASE PLEASE some reputable company buy them out! It is unbelievable that a company is allowed to hold records hostage. There should be legal ramifications for doing what they have done. I believe one owner lives outside the USA.
Hello Jenny,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! NewspaperArchive.com was purchased since the time of your review, and is under new ownership. We do sympathize with your frustrations however, and if you have any outstanding issues, please feel free to reach out and we'd be happy to assist you.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.
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Search 5.6 billion genealogy records including newspaper articles, obituaries, marriages, births, passenger lists, arrests, divorces, war casualties and more.
Hello Roger,
We're sorry to hear you had a negative experience with our services! We had a stability issue around that time that likely contributed to your issues, however it has since been rectified. If you have any outstanding issues, please let us know and we'd be happy to assist you.
If you have any active issues, or would like to follow up with us, please email us at customerservice@newspaperarchive.com and we'll do our best to assist you.