I began my Ancestry journey in December with a discounted three-month subscription, alongside DNA testing, and discovered many fascinating details about my family. While I found the service valuable, I also noted common complaints about navigation challenges and the numerous features locked behind additional paywalls. However, what truly frustrates me is their deceptive approach to handling subscriptions.
At the end of my 3 month period, I intended to cancel my subscription to avoid it automatically renewing at $149 every 3 months. Unfortunately, I didn’t complete all the necessary cancellation steps, and the subscription continued. Because this charge coincided with my tax refund, I didn’t notice it until today, when I was alerted by a bank notification after the renewal was processed.
When I contacted customer support, they informed me that they do not offer refunds once a subscription period begins, even for multi-month plans. Since the renewal date was today, they refused to reimburse me. A quick search brought up an old policy where they specifically allowed refunds on multi month subscriptions within 7 days of the start, which is no longer the case.
The cancellation process initially appears straightforward, but it quickly becomes frustrating. Clicking "cancel" on the first page only redirects you to another lengthy page requiring a second cancellation confirmation. This pattern repeats across multiple pages, each seemingly designed to distract users from completing the cancellation. I was conditioned to scroll down the pages years ago as this was a common practice of shady companies, but haven't seen this practice in years and didn't notice it this time.
This morning, I was finally able to cancel, but I lost count of how many steps were involved—it was certainly more than two or three. Customer support implied that this issue is common, making it clear that their business model relies on exploiting customers through an unnecessarily complicated cancellation process.
As a result, they’ve taken $300 from me (Of which I only asked for the current subscription refunded), even though I haven’t used the service in the last three months and have no intention of using it for the next three. While Ancestry offers a valuable service, its policies are clearly designed to benefit the company at the expense of its customers.
I intend to dispute this charge with my bank as soon as it officially posts to my account.
