Archives.com
Reviews and Complaints

The help page of this company states that one must click on a link to go to the "Subscription Options" page to cancel their membership, including being able to cancel the 7-day free trial. After clicking on that, there is nothing on that page AT ALL that allows the consumer to cancel anything. I have personally contacted Ancestry.com and told them about the complaints on this site where Ancestry.com was referenced and how this is bad business for them, and I was told that Archives.com is actually a subsidiary of Ancestry.com, just the welfare version of it. It was not until I was TRANSFERRED by Ancestry.com TO Archives.com that I was able to cancel this membership. Be very aware of whom you're dealing with. I did file a complaint with the FTC about this practice and I told the rep at Ancestry that I have done so. I also referred her to this site so she can read all of the complaints that are listed here. La'arni at Archives.com handled the call for me and cancelled the membership.

i signed in because it was a free trial .i tried to cancel before the trial was over and it still charged me. and i tried canceling again when i seen on my statement that i was charged for another month, i do not know what to do to get my money back or to really cancel.the last time i canceled it said i was not going to get charged again and i did.what can i do?

I cancelled my account on June 17, 2013. They charged me $49.95 and $6.95 on June 23, 2013. I am disputing it with my bank and they will go to Archives.com and ask for the money back. I cancelled within 1 hr of my 7 day free trial. I put in searches of people who I knew their name, date of birth, place of birth, time of death, place of death just as a test and I couldn't even get a match. They are a complete fraud as well as thieves. I am trembling right now. I am disabled and have many medical bills. I just can't afford this. I will get my money back if I have to go Iowa and strangle it out of them. I am on the phone with a rep from archives.com. I told him I felt sorry for him because he must get an awful lot of angry customers. He said no most people are very happy. Yeah right and I am princess Di. If you are looking for a telephone number it is [protected]. Never do business with these well I can't even call them people.

That phone number does not work. This is a subsidiary of Ancestry.com and I contacted the Better Business Bureau of Utah through their online form. I complained about the fact that it cannot be cancelled and that to satisfy me, I want 6 months of those charges refunded. I also mentioned that Ancestry.com has a high BBB rating and wondered why when they are scamming people. Anyway...a few days later, I got a note from them that they had contacted Ancestry and they have agreed to refund 6 months that they have been charging me.

The BBB of Utah form is really easy to fill out. The next day after Ancestry agreed, the 6 months payments ended up back in my account. I believe they don't want to ruin their rating, yet they want to make it difficult to cancel, so my advice is to
1/ Try several times phoning the number on your card line item. If no success (the phone never picked up for me), then
2/ go directly to BBB of Utah online and fill out their form and
3/ include at least one line item screen shot showing the phone number and amount debited from your account--just the line item not your entire statement, and
4/ complain that you can't cancel and ask for as many months as you've been trying to cancel.

The BBB of Utah was AWESOME. I couldn't have gotten my money back without them.

have tried for 2 days to cancel without success

I had the same problem. I called to cancel within my three days and they had already charged my account. I thought it was some sort of scam when I called to cancel and never got a live person and after waiting for more than five minutes, I was disconnected. I called back again and the same thing happened. I finally went online to contact us in an unrelated field and was called back. I then cancelled only to find out a week later they charged my account. anyway.

Another phone number given to me by my bank is [protected]. It is a good number I used it.

Thanks Justmike, this really helped me. I agree with everything you said. The email address I signed up with was not recognized when I tried to cancel, the system archives.com set up for correspondence would not load properly (therefore would not send), and I saw no hope of reaching anyone until I saw this post. When it is this difficult to cancel, something is wrong.

I called the number you provided (thank you) and got a human who said he would cancel me (no charge).

Hi JustMike, we're glad our customer service team was able to help you over the phone. The free trial includes access to our 260+ records collections. Members (including those in the trial period) also have the option to order hard-copy certificates and other special products (like DNA tests or discounted NewspaperARCHIVE memberships) at an additional cost. We hope to ensure our customers' full satisfaction, and we are happy to issue a refund when a customer is not satisfied with our products. If we can be of further assistance, please contact us at that number [protected]) or at support@archives.com. Sincerely, Chelsea-Archives.

The cancellation policy is in the terms and conditions that shoyld have been read before agreeing to the free trial. "About us" is available to anyone, member or no, by clicking on the site, and how dare you call Lovey a company shill!

Hi Linda,
Our customer service team has refunded your two certificate orders. Older certificates, like these from the late nineteenth century, are more likely to be unavailable now. We have sent you a confirmation email. Please contact us at support@archives.com or [protected] if we can be of further assistance. Sincerely, Chelsea-Archives.com

I fell for it too because I've seen their ad so many times on Ancestry.com, which I trust. Archive is a 90% scam. They have, current generation, info on people like a detective site, but not many historic records, like they claim to have, for genealogy research. Some of you are getting Archive.com and Ancestry.com confused. Archive is a site advertised on Ancestry, but you have to sign-up for it separately. Until we know different we should assume there is no affiliation between them, and we certainly expect there is not. Agencies will never be able to shut them down because they have a legit search engine & some data. The only way is to petition Ancestry.com to remove all reference to them, then they, (Archive.com ) lose 99% of their business. Ancestry will lose some ad $$ but it's necessary to keep, our trust, and their repetition, which no business can exist long without and is near impossible to retrieve after it's lost. (Noticed an Archives.com ad on this message board. Just sayin.)

Am going to cancel my free trial immediately. I think their records are in very poor disarray, their trees & "my Records" are not user-friendly and furthermore, it is very hard to discontinue. If you do sign up, keep the first email they send you. It has the link to where to go if you want to cancel. They certainly DO try to trick people into unwanted subscriptions. You get what you pay for!

I have been doing Genealogy for nearly 30 yrs. When I went to Archives.com they stated that I was a member, yet I could not sign-in. I even went as far as to give a credit card, and would have actually paid for info, but the site continued to refuse to give me access. I wrote to "support@archives.com" and received NO RESPONSE. I wrote again, and again. FRAUDULENT comes to mind. I will contact my credit card service to refuse payment if they have the nerve to try to take any $. I deal with many genealogy services and this one brings the words SHAMEFUL FRAUDULENT SCAM to mind!

Please do not order from this company. You guys realize that you can call the county directly and get your document faster and cheaper. this is a scam. taking your money and running off with it. these people do nothing but charge you 5 times the amount of a certificate and order from the county, exactly what you couldve done for cheaper! You ask why I know this, because I have worked for them. Please do not fall into this scam!

I had a suspicion about this site, and almost did the same thing as described above: provide my CC info, check it out, then possibly cancel if it was bogus info.

THANK YOU ALL for taking the time to write about your experiences! I'm sorry you lost money, but I really appreciate you taking the time to warn others like me. :) You saved me money I could not afford to lose.

It's not bad enough that they fraudulently charge your credit card after promising that they won't and don't allow you to cancel after promising that they will. When you decide to try to use the site, since you were forced to pay for it, it is absolutely useless. These people couldn't find their own mother is she was living next door to them. It's a shame that sites like this don't get shut down!

Horrible and unprofessional! I have just gotten off the phone with manager Melissa, who did nothing to help me get my money back (I was charged 2017, 2017 and 2017). They refunded the money from this year, as it was placed yesterday, but as of previous year she suggested I should take care of my finances and that they don't do it for clients! Now the aspect that angered me and that I see described in previous comments: to sound professional they claim they always send emails prior to placing charges on a card. GUESS WHAT? NEVER got any...When I asked Melissa about it, she claimed (!) they were courtesy emails and they didn't have to take responsibility for them getting lost! After I said it was odd I never got them, three years in a row, and how I suspect they were never supposed to be delivered, so that I wouldn't really know about the charge, she claimed I should be responsible for my account regardless if I get an email or not. Well, nice customer service, Archive.com - let's just admit, you DO count on people not noticing your charges and the courtesy emails you should send that you so proudly emphasize NEVER make it to clients inbox. They don't go to their junk folder as you strongly suggest, you just NEVER SEND THEM (they will say just about anything to make you look like a fool who doesn't have control over their life and will blame their shortcomings on you or your email account pushing their emails to its junk folder). Ironically, just when I was ready to hang up on Melissa, I got an automatic email from Archives about the phone call I placed AND I GOT THIS ONE! So, the marketing emails MAKE IT to my inbox, but the ones about CHARGES DON'T? Right, I get it. Keep counting on people not noticing the charges and then bombard them with your ready to use phrases that are formed specifically to corner the client, make them look stupid and get off the phone, so you can keep their money. Lesson learned - NEVER provide your credit card for a FREE trial. ARCHIVES.COM is a SCAM.

My mistake, should have read others reviews first before I fell for their "free 7 day trial". Had to enter credit card info-another RED FLAG I blindly ignored. My card got charged immediately, the site is horrible, the phone # they provide for customer service is constantly a fast busy signal(even more bogus) and I got bilked out of $ and had to deal with credit card fraud paperwork to ensure they don't take even more$. STAY AWAY...

My daughter's checking account was charged for a 39.95 charge to this web site today...she has never gone to this website, let alone that she doesn't even do genealogy. Someone has given her information to this website and they have charged her for it...she's also a college student so some of her money is provided by me...thanks for ripping us off people...they need to shut this place down...

I, too, regret that I did not read reviews for this bogus "company" prior to signing up for the 7 day free trial. I talked to two people (their customer service offices are in Omaha) who seemed to be reading off a script broken record style. One supposedly was a "supervisor"...in reality probably was the desk buddy of the previous person I spoke to. I asked for the address to send my request for a refund of this worthless service and for a contact person to whom I could send to their attention and he would not give a supervisor or head of customer service name. When I asked for the address of the corporate headquarters, he said he wouldn't give that out because customer service is in Omaha. Really? So what if all us unhappy customers wrote to the corporate headquarters and flooded their office with the stories of their atrocious and borderline scam service? I plan on sending letters there AND to "customer service" whose address is PO Box 391146, Omaha, NE 68139, at least that's the address according to the faux customer supervisor I just got off the phone with. I wonder if these people are aware that they have a non-credible rating as compared to a reputable company such as ancestry.com? I could only hope that as is stated on this site, that the owner of archives.com does see these reviews. Oh, wait, that would mean that the higher ups actually care about their reputation out there...somehow I don't think they care the least...only about the money their are raking in at the expense of the unknowing public.

Funny I was just there, They wanted $39.95 from me, They got Nothing From me. If they tell me it's a free trial, I expect a free trial, and if it's free dont ask me for My Credit Card Info on day one, show Me what you got, and if they cant, I Exit their little program, before they have the chance to grab My cash & hide out with it.Got to get up very early in the morning to beat this Cranky Old Lady out of her Cash, Or, Better yet sit up all nite (Bring a Big Lunch Your Gonna Need it). Sorry the rest of you got scammed.You can get copies of Marriage License Or Divorce Decree's through Your County Courthouse they are Public Record, You will have to pay a fee for them.

archives.com here is their phone number!
You won't find it anywhere on their site, but I was able to get it because they made a charge to my paypal account and they need to disclose a phone number.
ph #[protected]
seven day free trial and they charge you at the beginning of day 7? seven days free means seven days free right...
aren't they suppose to charge you on the eight then? once your seven days are up?
again... their ph # is [protected]