* My Heritage - A Warning!

[Peter_H_Williams]

Just a warning to everyone. With V6 I enrolled in My Heritage, which has been a complete waste of money. Imagine my chagrin this evening to find that without any warning they have deducted £100 from my Debit Card. I have asked for a refund.

Frankly, with such a brilliant Program I'm at a loss to know why Calico have associated themselves with such a valueless operation as MyHeritage

Peter Williams

[jmurphy]

Peter -- I don't know if you use Google Calendar at all, but I've started to use the Task list to make a note to myself of when the auto-renew comes up on my subscriptions (and when the sub expires if it isn't set to auto-renew).

I do appreciate that you can easily turn off auto-renew at Find My Past and the British Newspaper Library.

Ancestry is a mixed bag -- you must call and cancel your sub to Ancestry's main site, but Fold3 and Newspapers.com allow you to set whether you want to auto-renew on your profile.

I wish companies would realize that if you give the customer the option to set this for themselves, it will reduce the wear-and-tear on their Customer Service reps, and free them up to help customers who need assistance with real problems.

[Peter_H_Williams]

Jim

I use Banktree 3 (the best alternative to Quicken 2004 which I can no longer run on Windows 10) to manage all my accounts and payments and I do enter recurring charges, so if it is clear to me that my details have been taken and I am agreeing to continue subscribing that's where it goes.

It was certainly not clear to me when I installed Version 6 of FH that I was signing up on a recurring charge to My Heritage. I paid, whatever it was to see what it was like and whether it had any utility. To make matters worse I see now checking my Bank Account that MyHeritage have in fact deducted £120, not £100.

Any company that does not send out prior warnings that they intend making a deduction based on details on my bank card that belong to me, not them are in my view 'sharks'. I am simply posting a warning for others who may not have realised that when they upgraded to V6 they may have unwittingly agreed to pay this outfit £120 per year.

Do you use MyHeritage? I can't see it has any value whatsoever. I have subscriptions with FMP, Ancestry and The Genealogist and I believe I get value for money from all of them, or I wouldn't subscribe. I can't imagine anyone believing that My Heritage was worth any more than £20 per year. Even at £50 I wouldn't have re-enrolled.

FH6 is such a great piece of software I can't imagine why Simon got involved with such an outfit.

[johnmorrisoniom]

Off Topic,
To Peter.
Quicken 2004 does work on Windows 10 (And 8 and 7), it's just the installer that has to be run in XP compatability mode. I am still using it.

[DavidNewton]

In defence of FH6: installing FH6 does not sign you up to a subscription to MyHeritage.

How did MyHeritage obtain your card details? I am running FH6, and recently re-installed it due to the Windows 10 update in November and I am certain I was not asked to sign up a credit card to MyHeritage or anyone else at any point in the procedure.

David

[tatewise]

David is quite right. Installling FH V6 does NOT sign you up to MyHeritage.

In the original posting, Peter says: "With V6 I enrolled in My Heritage..." so presumably supplied credit card details to MyHeritage at that time. I think Calico Pie chose to use MyHeritage on the basis that it may be useful for some users, and did not charge an excessive license fee that would have to be incorporated with the FH V6 purchase price, as would have been the case with say Ancestry or FindMyPast. Using or subscribing to MyHeritage is the users choice. There have been several postings in these Forums about whether it is worthwhile.

[Peter_H_Williams]

David, Mike

I may be unusual because of the long hours I work. But, I purchase hundreds of items over the web during the course of a year and they all have my debit card details, I cannot stop them keeping them. That said I do not give them permission to use my account at will. Certainly in the business I run I warn people if they are about to incur a charge for my services and await confirmation before going ahead.

There is a big difference in the way My Heritage trade and Ancestry, FMP and the Genealogist. In order to use those latter services I have to log in. I do that more than 100x in a year. The "My Account" drop down tells me when my subscription will expire and whether I have elected to automatically renew.

With My Heritage, I never visit the site, indeed it wasn't until yesterday after I found myself unable to contact them on the tel. number that they gave in their email that I found the website and logged in.

I may be in a minority of one but the fact that having paid my £50 FH6 connects me with their website every time I load FH6 and involves no interaction with MyHeritage is I believe an 'unusual' way for a paid web service to operate, especially if it is not going to give any warning that it is about to hit you with a £120 charge. I would feel less angry if I saw MyHeritage as having some value! In fact it seems to be a completely pointless service which I immediately disabled in preferences.

Mike, as you are an expert in software perhaps you could advise whether simply unticking the Internet option has removed it completely, or do I need to do something else to remove it permanently from FH? My concern here is that they might still be collecting my data unseen.

If Simon had instead incorporated a link with the very useful (and free) FT Analyzer I think it would have been a much better direction to go than forming an alliance with this rather dubious operation.

Peter
Peter

[brianlummis]

Peter, have a look at the following link to the Financial Ombudsman which may give you a way of reclaiming the amount that has been debited. There are several cases quoted so you may find one that is similar to your own situation. Your first complaint must be to the Debit Card provider but do be absolutely sure of your facts. It is very unusual for a Card to be debited without prior authority being given as the company claiming under the continuous payment authority does need all the relative details from your card.
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/p ... yments.htm

[tatewise]

Peter, you seem to misunderstand what you've bought and how FH V6 works with My Heritage.

I don't know why you paid £50 for FH V6 as it is widely available for under £40.

However, that does NOT include any subscription to nor account on MyHeritage.

The Tools > Preferences > Internet Data Matches is a free record matching option.
To offer that free service Calico Pie will have probably paid MyHeritage a licence fee.

But if you wish to reveal any matched record details you must subscribe to and create an account on MyHeritage quite separately from FH V6 and supply your card details to MyHeritage.

When you click on a match in the Focus Window the resulting Web Search Window very clearly displays MyHeritage with http://www.myheritage.com/matchingresult... in the address bar, so it is obvious you are visting the MyHeritage web site.

If Tools > Preferences > Internet Data Matches is disabled then Calico Pie assures that no data is sent to MyHeritage. But there is no way the software that supports that service can be removed.

I also use Ancestry and FMP regularly, but to use their services I do NOT necessarily have to login in, because many of their services are free. In fact, just like MyHeritage, their record search is a free service. It is only the revealing of record details that is a subscription service, and for some census records even that is free.

FT Analyzer does not offer a record matching service against a database of historical records so I do not see how such a link is in any way comparable.

[NickWalker]

I think we can agree that comments about Family Historian are not relevant to this, none of this is the fault of Calico and it is obvious what is being signed up to.

I believe Peter knows he signed up to My Heritage but what he is upset about is that it renewed without him getting an email warning. I can understand that and agree that subscription services should inform you before they renew but sadly this seems to be something that more and more sites are not doing.

The terms and conditions for My Heritage that has to be ticked to agree with (but of course many of us never read these things carefully) say:

All subscriptions are automatically renewing to ensure an uninterrupted service. This means that once you become a subscribing member, your subscription will be automatically renewed and your billing choice will be charged based on the subscription duration unless you opt out or cancel by following the instructions in this Agreement. You may opt out of renewing your subscription by calling MyHeritage at +1-877-432-3135, or by logging into your My purchases page. If you do not let us know that you want to discontinue your subscription at least one day prior to the end of the current subscription period, the payment for the renewal period of the subscription will be made.

I think they would argue they never said they would send out an email before renewing. Calling them 'sharks' is probably a bit strong, but if they don't send out renewal warnings (have you checked your spam folders?) then their customer service could certainly be better.

Nick

[tatewise]

Under Prices Subject to Change they go on to say :

Except in the case of monthly subscriptions, whenever your subscription is renewed, MyHeritage will inform you by email of the amount you were charged, the next subscription renewal date and the price which you will be charged on the next renewal. Subscription prices may be changed by MyHeritage at any time. In case of a change, the new prices will not affect the next renewal of your subscription, but only subsequent renewals, and you will be informed of this by email one year in advance. Users who do not wish to continue with their subscription due to a pricing change may opt out of renewal as described in this Agreement.

So in the case of annual subscriptions they do use Emails.

[NickWalker]

So in the case of annual subscriptions they do use Emails.

Yes but apparently a year before the renewal is due!

[Peter_H_Williams]

Nick
Thank you. I think you summarised by position very well.
Peter

[Russell]

Whenever I join any website, one of the first things that I do if I am asked to enter my card or bank details is to check the renewal policy. If there is a built in way to cancel an automatic renewal (as with My Heritage and others) as a matter of course I unset it, so that I know that I will get a warning if they want my business. And I do this again at renewal.

Otherwise I set a diary note, either on my phone or by flagging the welcome email to prompt me to reread the terms a month or so before the renewal date.

If you are requested for any payment details on sign up and the site does not say up front it will not automatically renew then you should always check for yourself - and even then you should work along the lines that prevention is better than cure.

[Jane]

I have a Revolut card, which I use when travelling, which is a "real" card, but you can also create virtual "Debit Cards" which you can use for online payments. They are valid and you can use them like a real one, but you can generate a new number at any time and delete the old one.

[Gowermick]

I thought banking rules meant that companies were obliged to notify you when they are about to take money ( i.e. before not after!).
I’m sure that if companies such as BT can send you an e-mail a week before your monthly account payment is due, subscription sites such as MyHeritage could and should do the same. For them to fall back to the smallprint, just shows me that customer service is the last thing on their mind.

[jbtapscott]

Actually, with Continuous Payment Authorities companies don't even have to tell you if the amount and / or payment date change!. Most (UK) based companies that I have experience with (very few actually, as I am not a great fan of this type of payment!) do send me an email in advance of the payment being taken. It must be remembered that the rules for these types of payments are very different from those for Direct Debits and Standing Orders. It would probably also be an issue even if more robust rules were in place as they would apply to UK-based companies and My Heritage is not!.