OneGreatFamily review: Rip off scam 54

OneGreatFamily is a leader in the burgeoning online family tree market. Established in 1999, we are the only company that does automated matching and merging of family trees into one single family tree. As a subscriber you will gain access to billions of names and on average between 100, 000 and 300, 000 new names are added each week.

When you subscribe to OneGreatFamily you have the choice of initially signing up for a free 7-day trial whereby you are provided with unlimited access to our database as well as the used of our advanced family-tree software, Genealogy Browser.

Subscribers may in addition elect either a monthly, quarterly or annual subscription. Our standard monthly subscription is $14.95, however, choosing the annual subscription provides a 66 percent discount off the monthly rate (Example: $6.66 x 12 months = $79.95).

In addition, we routinely offer special promotions that further reduce the standard subscription rate which the customer above was fortunate to benefit from. By taking advantage of the promotion, customers can save an additional $20.00 off the annual subscription rate.

Per our terms and conditions, which each subscriber must agree to in order to register an account, each customer agrees to and accepts that they will not be eligible for a refund of the subscription.

Regardless, if a customer does express a desire to cancel their subscription they still retain access to their account for all the time in which they have paid for and continue to have access to any personal data which they added to our database. In addition, they may continue to use our award winning family-tree software, Genealogy Browser, at no additional cost and continue researching their ancestors on their own.

If you visit our website (OneGreatFamily.com), you will be able to read testimonials from many of our subscribers who have greatly benefitted from our service and who are thrilled at the amount of time which we save them by automatically identifying and merging additional names into their personal family-tree.

We provide a legitimate service, however, many people who freely register on our website are unwilling to put the necessary time which genealogy research requires in order to fully realize the benefits.

We are always willing to cancel an account when a customer properly notifies us of their desires to do so and also in many cases make consession on behalf of customers when circumstances require, however, we assume no responsibility or liability for the actions of individuals who are unwilliing to accept responsibility for their actions.

Our terms and conditions are freely available for review at http://www.onegreatfamily.com/Help/TermsAndConditions.aspx

I just canceled less in 24 hours of the Free Trial. I sent an email as there is NO link to cancel a subscription...pretty savvy. I found the site slow as molasses in January and I don't have the time and patience waiting 5 to 10 minutes for simple information. Other sites do not have that problem and I pay for them because they are efficient and very helpful. This site was neither and I've been doing Geneology for several years. I did receive an email today to send me to the link to cancel. We shall see if they follow thru after following their instructions carefully. I was informed I was canceled on the site:

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Cancellation Complete

Your OneGreatFamily subscription has been cancelled.

Your 7-day trial subscription cancellation is now finalized.
You will still have subscriber access until your free trial has expired.

************************I don't dare go back after reading the complaint I read above. They now have my credit card information But I have contacted the Credit Card company and informed them that any request for payment is NOT authorized.

i FULLY AGREE WITH EVERY THING YOU HAVE SAID I SIGHNED UP FOR THE FREE TRIAL FOUND THE SITE USELESS AND DECIDED TO CANCEL WITHIN HOURS BUT WAS UNABLE TO DO SO I WILL NOW CONTACT THE BANK I WISH I HAD KNOWN SOONER WHAT A SCAM THIS WAS
ANNE

I signed up nearly 2 years ago on a 7 day free trial and have been trying to cancel since then, each month£11 is taken from my account, I have changed my card twice and the bank has contacted them on numerous occasions with no luck, total rip off at the end of my tether with them

I just spoke with this company and am outraged by the lack of professionalism. When I cancelled the subscription in 2007, apparently, the account was not deactivated, nor do their records show that I called - convenient. How does the consumer prevail in a "their word against mine" case? My bank is disputing charges for the past 120 days, but that is the extent of their ability to advocate on my behalf. One may ask why I did not investigate prior to now - the $14.95 charge was simply lost among the $10-20K per month deductions from our bank account. To date, this company has stolen approximately $330.00 from me and apparently, the total consumer aggregated amount is significantly higher.

BTW: The website is not user-friendly by any stretch of the imagination. Investigating one's ancestry seems to be a full-time job, which holds no appeal for this curious girl.

Related to the previous comment, Sarah Cornelius signed up for our online subscription through our secure web page on 10/21/2007 under the 7-day free trial. At this time the MONTHLY subscription was selected. The ability to cancel or downgrade is given to each subscriber online. In the terms and conditions it states, “To avoid being charged after the trial period, as a 7-day trial customer you must finalize your cancellation requests within the trial period by following directions that will be given to you after we have received your cancellation request.” No cancellation attempts were made.

Again on the 7-day free trial sign-up page it states, “Your 7-day trial is risk free for the first seven days. You may cancel any time during the free trial period. You will not be billed and your plan will not start until the trial period is over.” Again, we did not receive any cancellation requests, and there were no cancellation attempts made by this customer. The account remained active, and the subscription began on 10/29/2007. There are many ways to cancel an account with us. It can be done online or customers can contact us through our email, or customer service phone. Customers also can disable the automatic renewal at any time themselves. This is explained in our terms and conditions on the sign-up page. All of our customers are required to click that they have read and agreed to our terms and conditions before they are able to create an account.

In our terms and conditions, it states “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 you have chosen. Monthly, quarterly, biannual subscriptions or annual subscriptions or annual renewals may be cancelled by you at any time by calling [protected], but no refund will be made for unused subscription time.” If our customers do not click that they have agreed to our terms and conditions, they cannot proceed with creating the account.

We received a cancellation request on 7/29/2009. At that time, the automatic renewal was disabled, but based on the terms and conditions that were agreed to at the time of sign up, a refund was not issued. It is important to note that although the customer's account was cancelled they have not been denied access to the account and will continue to have full access to the service thru the end of the current subscription period.

Once a customer has subscribed to our service they may also download our free Genealogy Browser software to do research on their own family tree. Here are some additional benefits to subscribing to OneGreatFamily:

• Start researching where others left off
• Meet and collaborate with family
• Search millions of names
• See your entire pedigree at once
• View and edit your data from just about anywhere
• Automatically find your ancestors
• Safeguard your data from computer failures
• Connect you to the original online family tree

Our services and access to our database are provided on a subscription basis. Our terms and conditions are available for review at http://www.onegreatfamily.com/Help/TermsAndConditions.aspx

I have found this site to be one of the most helpful, useful amazing genealogy websites there is. It explains CLEARLY in the terms and conditions that you will be charged immediately after the 7-day free trial is over. I have found there customer service team to be VERY helpful and this website to be a remarkable resource for those who are honestly interested in pursuing family history. Obviously, none of you read or understand english because they tell you what is going on the entire time. And if they do this, WHY would they give you your money back? It's your own negligence.

The company makes it virtually impossible to cancel a subscription before, during, or after the 7-day free trial. There is no link to cancel. There is no ability to remove your credit card information. I have called the number repeatedly and have left numerous voicmails. I have received no response. Do an internet search and you will find hundreds of unresolved complaints. If they are such an upstanding company, they would be concerned about their customer service and would work with their customers. According to the Better Business Bureau and many other websites, this company has no concern for anything but the almighty dollar. Their tactics are nothing more than theft and fraud.

My suggestion: As soon as you are charged, contact your bank and dispute the charge!

I did not sign up for a 7 day free trial. I do not even know what this is about but when I checked my debit card today $79.95 was taken off. I have not even attempted to contact these people about any family tree or any thing like that. I just want my money put back on my card. I tried to contact them but they keep saying I have to login into an account before my complaint will be processed. I do not have an account with them. If any one knows of a telephone number I can call please email me at javall.williams@gmail.com

Mr. Williams,

You can contact us by calling toll-free at [protected]. Our business hours are from 9 am to 5 pm, MST.

Thanks,

OneGreatFamily Customer Support

DON'T USE THIS WEBSITE! This is one of the worst customer service experiences I have ever had. I cancelled my subscription 9/09/2009 (tho they don't make it easy to do so. I used the telephone message method, which is a crafty way of making a confirmation hard to trace.) I was charged in October. I called again and asked for refund of the October charge. I never got that, but I was told my subscription was cancelled and they didn't charge me in November, December, and January. Then I sudden'y get a charge in early Feb. I've tried to get that back; they claim they have no record of that cancellation. They don't respond to the fact that I wasn't charged for November to January. This website SUCKS! DO NOT USE! If I have to eat this charge, I am telling as many people as I can on FB, Ancestry.com boards and elsewhere to STAY AWAY. Horrendous customer service experiences and complaints everywhere on the net. I learned my lesson. Use Ancestry.com for all geneology needs. They're also VERY reasonable and helpful. RUN AWAY from 1greatfamily.

Also note, on the BBB.org Utah site, their rating is F. What a shock.

i agree i thought i cancelled last november 2009 but these mouth get billed again dont know want to do please help

I loaded my family tree and forgot to remove living family members and they are refusing to remove them from the database. They believe once you upload the information it's theirs. I didn't even want them to remove the whole tree just living members of which there were 10. Be careful what you information you give them. I;m sticking with ancestry.com from now on.

I saw this same scam on Free Credit Report dot com.

Be it known that if you can make a one time payment online, do NOT use the service. period.

There will be one site that will let you do that and that is the one that should get the business.
Not companies like this scummy scam artist. Why, just because they helped that Jessica Parker person?

Im sure they didn't rip her bank account off. Ancestry dot com, here is a message to you.
Stop that automatic billing because you are technically stealing money not authorized to you and when people want to cancel, you should make it a no brainer to do so.

People should wake up to this scam and alert the authorities to it.

sorry I meant "if you CAN'T make a one time payment"

I signed up for the seven days and couldn't find any information that I couldn't get from another provider. Whenever I found something, they wanted to charge me extra to get the specific information. So, I didn't get anything. I thought I had canceled several times, but they kept billing me and made it difficult for you to see how to unsubscribe. I went to the credit card company to get them to stop Great Family from charging me and they still charged me. After trying to cancel three times I finally got an e-mail from them stating that the account was now closed. This was after going for nearly six months with no benefit to me, but a huge charge to my card.

I AM VERY ANGRY WITH ONE GREAT FAMILY AND I RECOMMEND STAYING CLEAR OF THEM.

I set up the 7 day free trial and used my card as the others did. Within 20 minutes I could not find anything that I wanted. I even punched in things that I knew were out there and available and nothing. It wasn't very helpful. So I cancelled within 20 minutes. Guess what? I got charged anyway!

I called customer service and she was very nice and cancelled my account she also said that they sent me an email asking me to confirm that I cancelled and I never received it. But she said that she gave me a credit on my account, cancelled it and gave me a cancellation confirmation number. I have it all logged in the event they lose their records.

The thing with this and especially Archives.com - they are just a porthole to the information. They tell that they found X number of pieces of information for you and when push the button to fetch it, lo and behold another website wants to charge you for the information.

I am sticking with Ancestry.com. I get what I pay for. I know what I am paying for. No hidden charges and if I really want a death certificate, I will go straight to the office to get it. No through some liason website.

They say they are professional, so was Al Capone - and claim it's easy to cancel ...
I contacted the BBB in Utah and the Family responded with some files showing I had cancelled - no indication of a refund mind you. They claim
to send E-Mail, but I have not received any. Eighty bucks is a bit enthusiastic to charge for almost a month of frustration- my advice:
Steer clear of this Family operation.

This site is a joke! They are totally over-selling their services and they DO NOT have the data they say they do. The site is sllllloooowww all the time. They don't tell you up front that you have to enter 18 DIRECT descendants in order to start getting any matches. If you know 18 direct descendants, why do you need them! The site rarely updates. The "dashboard" says ittakes 45 minutes to download!?

Customer service is through email only and they don't fix anything.

They don't make it clear that if you buy a one year subscription ($60.00) they WILL NOT refund your money at all...not even the very next day!

They do not deliver what they promise...total waste of money and time!

I tried them and found it very easy to cancel. They were polite and professional and I'm thinking about signing up again.

If you can't manage to read the instructions perhaps you should load up your computer and take it back to where you got it from. There are so many people that fail to read what is written on the pages. It isn't that hard at all.

It seems that there are many people out there who cannot follow instructions and do not understand what they read. I signed up with this site about 2 years ago and I pay on the annual plan. It is not the most user friendly program, but does work reasonably well. It tends to make more connections than I would care for IF you let the program run automatically. I made that mistake and wound up with a family tree that was simply unmanagable with over 19, 000 names. Yikes! It took me quite a while to figure out, after trying for too long to do it on my own, that I could start over simply by deleting the anchor person, me. I then reloaded an old GEDCOM file and have been happy ever since. Both this site and Ancestry.com have good and bad points and I use them both. Just remember to read and understand the instructions. If you have questions, I found that their e-mail folks will respond usually within 24hrs during the work week. Expect a longer response time over weekends and holidays.

I too took advantage of the 7 day free trial and realized after 2 days that it just was not the right site for me. I sent an email to onegreatfamily.com advising them exactly that. When I next checked my bank details I discovered that they had charged me for 3 months. I immediately sent anotheer email to complain and ask for my money back. They replied that I still had 3 months to go. I then sent another one to ask why they could answer my complaint after they took the money from my account and they couldn't before they took it. I am yet to receive another answer. I definitely feel that I have been duped. No one wants to be responsible for any sort of answer. I have not found one thing of interest to me on the site.
VeeJay

I have had a similar experience where I signed up for a free trial and got stuck with a recurring fee that seems to be impossible to stop. It's very convenient that they can accept payment online but can only cancel payment by phone. I've called during their work hours, waited on hold, and got an answering machine. My account still wasn't cancelled. I'm attempting to dispute charges with my bank, but that's another gripe.

There is no excuse for the poor cancellation policy this company is using...they automatically take your money- yet you can not automatically cancel. Bad news. The only way to get "at them" is to not only call them, but to inform your credit card company that you cancelled on what date and with with customer service rep. These people are real ripoffs.

I was curious about the site and tried the "7 DAY FREE" trial and was amazed at how slow the site was and there is very little information. After a few hours on the site trying to find out where the information is hidden, i decided to cancel the account. I received an email saying OGF had started an incident report and gave me incident number [protected]. after a week i noticed a charge on my credit card for them. i called them and was told that i never confirmed the cancellation however the lady on the phone could not tell me when the email was sent. she says its automatically sent by the system and she has no control or ability to see the email. this site is a scam and i will report it every complaint website that i can find until my money is refunded.

I also was charged the $79.95 after canceling. I'm reporting it to the BBB. Ridiculous. I wish I had seen the other complaints.

Stay clear of mylife.com, reunion.com, and onegreatfamily.com. Their business practices leave much to be desired. I would say I second the complaint about the cancellation tactics, but it looks like would be number 10 in line. They make it difficult (i.e. call only, guess which menu option) to cancel and provide zero warning that your membership is coming due. My subscription is cancelled, but I eat $80. Lesson learned. Sicking with the reputable sites: tribalpages.com (free) and ancestry.com (paid). You get what you pay for. The stuff I found on onegreatfamily.com are all available for FREE on familysearch.org, death certificates included.

I am from Wellington, New Zealand, and had the same thing done to me too.I decided to take a free trial like everybody else on the 7 July 2011 and cancelled the next day, so i gave plenty of time me to cancel the subscription, but URL would not go through.Today is the 19 July 2011 and with me sending numerous forms of complaints through nothing more has been done.I checked my bank balance on Saturday and found the money had been taken out and only left me with $9.00 in it, and it wasn't until I went into the bank balance that I have been charged a $50 penalty rate on top of payment for a thing i didn't want.Also I thought I was putting in the wrong username and password so asked them to e-mail me my uaername back to me, and got the username and the password, in which the password opened up with the actual out for all to see.I always thought the password was never meant to be given out.I am going to take it further.

I have tried to cancel as well after being billed unexpectedly. They refused. The website does not work properly, and I found the links they tried to pass off as ancestors was clearly fraudulent as there were gaps (of several generations) between my actual ancestors and the ones they "discovered."

I feel scammed.

I don't care for any refund. I just want to cancel the service as of this month and not incur any future charges. What I find irritating is the complete lack of information on their website about how to do so. Perhaps there is something in their terms and conditions ... but since that is not where ANYONE ELSE puts their cancellation information, then why would I think to look there?

I only found information on how to cancel by googling "unsubscribe from one great family", which brought me to this site where I read all the complaints. If the company had provided cancellation information on their website, my eyes would have never seen these complaints and I would still have a good impression of the company. Poor PR move on your part, One Great Family!

Anyway, off I go to read the "terms and conditions" in order to find out how to cancel. Because I have been assured by the above postings that the information is there.

Jan. 2012, wanted to read old newspapers on AncestRY.com. Googled it, mistakenly signed up on AncestOR.com. Realized mistake, immediately emailed them, plus, website said I must call during business hours for cancellation. Also called credit card right away to tell them to cancel charge, but they said was pending, should call onegreatfamily first to allow them to refund. Called next morning, was given cancellation # but was told to call another extension for refund. A recording..I left info, requested $59.95 back. Called credit card again to inform them, for their record, that I am in process of getting refund. Today, got credit card bill. Charge is still there! Called [protected], left message AGAIN that I do NOT want services at all, please refund. I was firm, not nasty. I felt tricked and told them that by now, they should have refunded. No person answers refund line-ever- you must leave a message, so I am sure my firm message was recorded. Within the hour, I received a very nasty, condescending email letter saying I was not tricked, they are a wonderful company and they are keeping the money because I signed up for a subscription and those are NOT refundable. They were nasty and told me I am not taking personal responsibility for my actions in signing up and paying them and that thousands before me HAVE taken personal responsibility for their actions! There was no name on the letter, THEY did not take personal responsibility to name the person who composed that nasty, personally-insulting letter. After the email, onegreatfamily is the LAST place I would want to do business with. Next, called credit card, began a billing dispute claim. Then called company again, without giving info, I asked person for a physical address, got:2162 Grove Parkway, Pleasant Grove, UT 84062, asked for name of CEO, owner. but the worker specifically told me they are trained to NOT give that information. She was just doing her job, she was polite. THEN I told her about the nasty email and that I simply want the money refunded, I have not and will not use their service, I do not want it. I politely, professionally asked to be sent to Billing Cancellation AGAIN. AGAIN, no person present, had to leave a message. I recorded that I do not appreciate the personal, nasty email they sent, that I will NOT allow this company to take my money-I do NOT want their service and I will persistantly pursue a refund because I feel very deceived by their site setup and refusal of refund. Next step...Better Business Complaint and I will tell my country-wide genealogy friends and acquaintances to steer clear of this unprofessional, rude, condescending site. STEER CLEAR of them, people!

No surprise this company has an "F" rating with the Utah BBB (http://www.bbb.org/utah/business-reviews/genealogy-services/one-great-family-in-pleasant-grove-ut-13001490). Not only do they make it nearly impossible to cancel, they have written into their terms that they can change things at any time, without notifying their customers. How many of you have noticed the fee increase from $59.95 to $79.95? By the time you do, it will be too late. You see, they claim you signed your rights away with their "Continuous Service Agreement." They can do anything they want, at anytime, and the onus is on their customer's to figure it out. Of course, the only time you find out about the change is when it hits your bank account- and since they don't issue refunds for any reason- you are basically screwed. There is legal precedent (Douglas Vs. Talk America) that makes this illegal; but OGF will not respond to that allegation. Anyone up for a Class Action Suit?

This website is the biggest hoax that their is out there I never signed up for them and I logged into my bank account the other day and saw they had charged me some few for 59.88 I called had my.debit card canceled as I never subscribed to anything and contacted their company repeatedly and let them know a mistake had been made and that I wanted whatever account they had canceled and a refund given and I keep getting the same email stating that my account has been canceled and I will not be charged AGAIN that it has been turned over to the Billing department and if they feel I qualify for a refund that they will contact me. So I contacted them says later and the response that I got was you should take this up with your bank and not our company personally I think that anyone who is thinking about signing up for visiting or even looking at their sham of a website should think twice because apparently even if you don't sign up or even ever go to their webpage you'll get scammed and screwed over.

I entered this site for the 7 day free trial on 14th Oct 2012, on the 15th Oct I was checking my bank statement and found they had taken a years subscription from my account, I have been trying ever since to get my cash refunded, my bank has tried but failed, They have not answered any of my emails nor can you keep a copy as you can only mail them from their site email forms.
Surely it is illegal to take this money before the trial period is up ?
Any suggestions as to what action I can take. I have never used the site and don't intend to.

This site is a joke I haven't even used the site for anything and you are still taking for payments I've forgot my login details and I would like u to stop taking money out of my account for a website I'm not even using so cancel my details.

How is this site still getting away with taking money from people that have trusted them, I would welcome any advise as to how they can be stopped.

Great big rip off, I had signed up for Archives.com hopefully to get some more info that Ancestry.com could not supply. Signed up for the free trail and of course you have to give a credit card even to look. Didn't Have what I wanted and the family tree was to hard to follow, so I cancelled with in 24 hrs. Then looking at my credit card bill I get billed $50 something from One Great Family. I tried using it and every search I put in came up zero even though I found the information on Ancestry so I know it is out there. Tried to do a family tree and it keeps coming up with error messages. So sent an email to them and told them they had better not charge me again at the end of the subscription, they came back and said they wouldn't charge me for a new year however they are not going to give me the money already charged told be to go back to Archives.com and get it from them. They still have not answered my email. Of course I kept all of the emails that went between me and One Great Family so if this charge shows up again next year I WILL SUE.

Did the same with me. Go to BBB web site and file a complaint.