This continual tirade against ancestry.com, which seems to be cross posted to more and more lists by the day, is really getting me narked. Maybe its about time somebody started telling some truths about the company. The first fact is that the lists on which all this Ancestry bashing takes place are actually owned, and financed free of charge by ancestry.com - which rather gives the lie to all the money grubbing capitalist complaints. (And for those who will answer - "but how long before they start charging?" - listowners had to pay for lists, before Ancestry bought Rootsweb and got rid of the charges) Ancestry.com also provides a huge amount of FREE websites for genealogy through their freepages.rootsweb.com sites, and also support, again free of charge, FreeBMD, FreeCEN and FreREG. The "pay for" databases provided by Ancestry, are a bargain when compared to the travelling costs and reproduction costs involved in obtaining the information from other sources. The contents of the Ancestry.com pay-for databases are available without charge. People who pay for a subscription before checking that the subscription covers data which they need have only themselves to blame for not checking first. Paying for an on-line database access without checking its content first is like travelling 300 miles to a records office before checking that it is open on the day and has a fiche reader free! Instructions for cancelling trial subscriptions to Ancestry are fairly clear and straight forward for those who can be bothered to read them. Problems of credit-card fraud should be taken up with the credit card issuers and the internet access companies, and not the service providers. I have been tracing my family tree for a quarter of a century, it has always been an expensive hobby, but the services provided by Ancestry.com (including the free exchange of information on lists like this) have made it a lot cheaper over the past few years. I have no financial or other connection with ancestry.com, other than being a very satisfied customer of their pay-for services and a very grateful recipient of their many free services. Regards Alwyn In a message dated 06/05/2002 01:14:17 GMT Daylight Time, Irishbob@bellatlantic.net writes: > I've also subscribed to Ancestry.com and genealogy.com. However, when you > query for > information your told to "purchase" an additional subscription to a > particular > database to get the information you seek. Of course you must also open your > checkbook for another $39.95 or $59.95, etc. > > After the initial 3 month subscription I told them I didn't want to renew. > The next > month I found another charge to my credit card for another 3 months. When I > called > to complain I was told there was nothing they could do. I was then told I > had to > call another 800 number to cancel. It seems you can't get it done with the > rep > making the sale!! Its a total rip off!! Do not subscribe to either > "service"! > > I've got them now however ... I closed my account and opened another visa > account. > Now, lets see them bill the old account! >

At 12:12 PM 6/05/02, AlwynapHuw@aol.com wrote: >Maybe its about time somebody started telling some truths about the >company.>>>>>>>> Really worthwhile reading about all that, Alwyn. Regards Graham