Dennis P. Harris wrote: > > On 03 Jan 2002 16:34:58 GMT in soc.genealogy.misc, > davehinz@spamcop.net wrote: > > > Better cancel your newspaper subscription, your phone, your electricity, > > and all those other companies which keep your agreement live unless told > > otherwise then. > > > they send me bills. if i don't pay them, they cut off the > service. > > none of them automatically bill my credit card. from what people > say, ancestry.com does, whether people tell them they want to > renew or not. > > you apparently don't understand these simple facts. i don't know > how to explain it more simply, so you must just be a troll out to > be contrary. Dennis, this will obviously come as a nasty shock, but in many parts of the USA it is possible to have one's electric, phone, and natural gas paid automatically out of one's bank account. Once authorized, the debits continue until one informs (a) the creditor that one is cancelling the procedure and (AND!) (b) the bank that one is dis-authorizing the debits. My GM in WV used it, friends and relatives in TX, LA, GA, CA, IL, and KY use it. It generally takes one full billing cycle from (b) for the debits to stop. Our on-line bill-paying service works the same way, if we tell it to: it can be set to automatically pay $X every 30 days to Company A. (A propos another thread, note that the bank doesn't care how many days in a month, it pays out at "T=30".) YOU may not use this service, I don't use it, but millions of folks in the US *do* use it. So Ancestry.com's is not exactly plowing new ground. Cheryl

Must we be unpleasant? I don't see how any of this could be a "nasty shock". The key words here are "if we tell it to." Most people want their electricity, gas, etc. to continue. Unless we're planning an extended vacation, why wouldn't we want it to continue? Gas this month, electricity the next? It's just not that way. However, with Time magazine, Good Housekeeping, Popular Mechanics, Ancestry.com, it's a crap shoot. Do we or don't we? These things are not necessities and might easily be dropped as we move on to new interests. Maybe when we sign up for the 3 month trial if we don't cancel, Ancestry assumes we want to continue. Maybe it says this in the fine print some of us didn't read. Who knows? Who cares? Lori Singhals wrote: > Dennis P. Harris wrote: > > > > On 03 Jan 2002 16:34:58 GMT in soc.genealogy.misc, > > davehinz@spamcop.net wrote: > > > > > Better cancel your newspaper subscription, your phone, your electricity, > > > and all those other companies w

On Fri, 04 Jan 2002 09:19:17 -0500 in soc.genealogy.misc, Singhals <singhals@erols.com> wrote: > Dennis, this will obviously come as a nasty shock, but in many > parts of the USA it is possible to have one's electric, phone, > and natural gas paid automatically out of one's bank account. I know that. That was NOT the issue. He said that magazine subscriptions continue automatically, and I said that I've never had one that was renewed automatically. Please go back and reread what I posted, instead of going off topic. The fact is that Ancestry is a slimeball company that bills credit cards without prior approval.

"Dennis P. Harris" wrote: > Please go back and reread what I posted, instead of going off > topic. The fact is that Ancestry is a slimeball company that > bills credit cards without prior approval. The "slimeball company" merely presumes that you are able to read and understand English. [Note that a free telephone number is provided. And somewhere I remember an email address published for those not able to utilize the 1-800 number.] 2.1 Continuous Service Membership. Subscription membership in the Service is on a continuous service basis. This means that once you have become a subscribing member, your subscription will be automatically renewed and your credit card will be charged based on the subscription program (annual, quarterly, etc.) you have chosen. Credit card charges will be processed within 24 hours after subscription and products included in memberships will be shipped shortly thereafter. You will be notified by e-mail 15 days before your subscription will end, asked to correct any information which has changed and given the opportunity to "opt out" of your renewal. You must call Ancestry.com at 1-800-262-3787 at least two days before the renewal date for the cancellation to be effective. [There is a further note about continuation of Free Subscriptions and there is also a 30 day money-back guarantee on original or renewal subscriptions, so anyone who has been charged "without permission" has somehow failed to respond within the fifteen day notifcation and the 30 day guarantee period. 45 days should be sufficient for anyone to prevent "unauthorized" credit card charges]. http://www.ancestry.com/legal/terms.htm