Ancestry.com - Genealogy.com - continued, unauthorized automatic billings after verbal account cancellation

Ancestry.com - Genealogy.com - continued, unauthorized automatic billings after verbal account cancellation

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Automatic billing - Ancestry/Genealogy.com

Continued unauthorized automatic billing after an account has been cancelled verbally and in writing seems to be a widespread abuse. After weeks and/or months of calling, it finally ceases---then they advise that they can only credit you for the current month.

This happened recently with Ancestry and Genealogy.com, but it is not the first time though the pattern is the same. Even cancelling two or three days in advance of expiration results in a "too late to cancel" excuse.

The banks can do nothing...they do not even have a "stop payment" process.

After numerous phone calls, e mails, and promises to credit that were not honored "oh, our system is set up so we can only credit you with one month---the prior month's credit has to be done manually and will take a couple of days"---i filed a complaint with the FTC and the CA attorney general.

the latest e mail came today---advising me that i had been in contact with the wrong people and advising me to start the process over---this after 4 months!

The law needs to be changed so:

1. the charges can be stopped at the bank by a "stop payment" order. It would be even better if "stop payment" charges or fines were levied back on the company stealing $ from your account...because it is simple fraud and theft.

2. the practice should be re-named "automatic payment" because that is what it is--it is not "automatic billing". "automatic billing" connotes presentation of a bill for payment. A bill is never presented.

3. when signing up for a service, there should be a check the box for :

"you are authorized to charge for ___month(s) only" with the subscriber filling in the number of months.

this is in line with other automatic payment programs of the phone and utility companies.

further: "your last date to cancel to avoid new charges is the ____th of the month"

4. all of them should be forced to offer and acknowledge cancellation promptly by e mail...they have no problem with immediately sending you a "welcome" e mail when you sign up. and those who solicit and sign you up electronically and then have only an 800 number that never answers to cancel...or keeps you on hold etc. should be forced to offer electronic cancellation and acknowledgement. credit should be given from the date on your cancelling e mail. and no excuses about the inability of the system to credit fully if more than a month's refund is due.

5. there should be penalties for companies continuing what can only be called a scam. Squeezing another month out of every cancellation no doubt adds up to a tidy sum. they should be forced to credit the victims and then disgorge their ill gotten gains total as a fine to the state. the accounting costs involved in getting this info together for prosecutors might discourage the practice.

for those snookered by this scam, or seeing it drag out month after month, going to your payment profile page with the company and deleting the bank information therein sometimes works. the page is meant for you to use if changing banks. i found this out by accident when i punched in the numbers of a recently closed account in error. punching in fake numbers is tempting, but could be construed as fraud.

# 16 for December 23, 2003

Read today's next posted complaint

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It has my vote!

PS - deleting bank info no longer seems to work - most merchants are now hooked up to to 'subscription' for updating credit card information. My account shows "no" billing information on file (I deleted it some time back) and the card expired in February. It's November is it's still begin charged. I've canceled the card and filed a dispute.