Ancestory.com Ancestry.com Unable to Cancel Service Provo, Utah

I attempted to cancel my service in Oct. of this year (2012). I couldn't see how to do it online, so I called the Customer Service number. A service rep answered the phone and walked me through the process. I stopped using Acestry.coms service, despite the fact that I had been using it daily up to that point. I assumed it was closed. On Nov. 19th, I noticed that my debit
card had been charged the regular monthly fee. I went back through the steps to cancel my service a second tiime. I received a message: "Unable to process your request at this time. Please try again later." I called the "800" number listed next to the charge on my debit card statement and spoke to Bethany.

I requested a refund, but was told that I couldn't get one unless I had a confirmation number from when I closed the account in October. I advised that I hadn't been given one, but was assured that I had been. I was put on hold for quite a while so Bethany could get approval from her supervisor. She came back and reiterated her previous position. She told me that my most recent online attempt, however, had been successful and that I didn't have anything to worry about. I asked for a confirmation number, just in case, and she couldn't give me one. I asked for an email confirmation and she couldn't send one. I was put back on hold again, as I had requested to talk to her supervisor.

Once through to her supervisor, Virginia, I was given a confirmation number for the most recent request to discontinue my service. The duration of the call was 48 minutes. During this entire time, every effort was made to wear my resolve down. I was put on hold for long periods of time. I was assured that although I needed a confirmation number to make sure my account was closed in October, I would not need one this time. As a result, my feeling towards ancestry.com is very negative. I read numerous complaints from several people on ripoff.com that were concerning the exact same situation. The bad
part is that many of these consumers were lured in with a "30-day free trial period" and wound up having to not only pay for the 30 days, but often for several 30 day periods as they went through the same problems trying to cancel their service.

I highly recommend that an investigation towards Ancestry.coms advertising, billing, and cancellation practices be initiated on
behalf of the American Consumer.