Fold3 Reviews 77

DO NOT use this service. I personally feel like I have been scammed. Like many other reviewers here, I cancelled my autorenew immediately. One week later, they proceeded to bill me for a PREMIUM subscription. Their autorenew system does not send you an email when you cancel, so you lack a paper trail in your complaints against them. (For those of you still battling to get your money back like me, make sure you take screenshots! I am now documenting everything - and I have screenshots of my cancellation of their 'premium' service while I am also trying to get a refund and ask them to delete my card information!). Importantly, they do NOT allow you to delete your credit or debit card on your account, which means they permanently keep your card on record to bill in in the future even if you opt to cancel. If they won't delete my card and account as I requested, I will be forced to cancel my card with my bank. What a time-consuming mess. I wish I had read these other reviews before signing up for a free trial. If I could give them zero stars I would. This has to be illegal.

Not worth the money, should be in with the subscription for the main site but I'm researching my ancestry and I'm on the premium package and they want me to pay extra on fold3 to look at my own ancestors military records when I go on Findmypast and get them included with the subscription...

If I could give zero stars I would. I really wish I would have looked for these reviews before trying the free trial. Like the other reviewers here I did the free trial and made sure to turn off auto renew. And then I was charged anyway. I emailed the company and got a refund with a generic email that did not address my email at all. So much for customer service! I too mistakenly thought I could trust a site affiliated with Ancestry. Just save your time and your money and do not do the free trial! The site isn’t worth it and their deceptive practices does not warrant the aggravation you will have.

Do not take the free trial. I did this and then selected the do not auto-renew. But they took my money anyway. It’s a scam. AVOID THEY ARE NOT PLAYING FAIR.

"Free Membership" with Ancestry.com. I have a full ancestry membership, but try to look at something on fold3.com and it won't show me anything (except a few pages) unless I upgrade for $12/month. Out of 20 pages on the first page of the list of Detroit Free Press articles, only 3 are viewable with my ancestry.com membership. I'm not going to pay an additional $144/year for something that ancestry.com said was included in their premium membership.

As with so many others, I took out a 7-day free trial, having arrived at the site through an Ancestry search. On looking at the site I realised the majority of records related to the USA which was of no use to me, so I cancelled the trial the same day. The cancellation was confirmed in my account, showing the expiry date of membership in 7 days time and autorenew clearly showed as 'No'. Sure enough, 7 days later there was a charge of $59.95 on my credit card with a 'Welcome to our premium subscription' email from Fold3. I emailed them to request an immediate refund and received a response very soon after along with a refund to my credit card - although differing exchange rates mean I am still a few £s out of pocket. I'm usually so cautious with free trials but, being associated with Ancestry, I trusted this to be genuine and only checked Trustpilot afterwards to discover this is a regular occurance and not a simple error. I can't fathom why Ancestry would associate themselves with a site which is clearly out to rip people off. Avoid at all costs!

I started a free trial with fold3 and cancelled it immediately and can see on my account page that it had been cancelled and yet they still took money for an annual membership the day after . It’s an absolute scam and they then ignore messages and I don’t expect to get a refund as they will not respond. Do not sign up!

Update: I did eventually receive a refund but it took far too long and communication with fold3 was dreadful. I was extremely disappointed with how they dealt with this issue. It took them 6 months to reply to this review.

Like many others I took the free trial via ancestry, and immediately cancelled. To my surprise they still charged me. Fraudulently took my money, like many others before me! AVOID!

This site has lots of interesting stuff but i suppose it depends on what your looking for, as others have said my free trial surprised me by taking money when i was sure i had cancelled membership the night i got it, payment was taken a week later. I can't fault the company on dealing with matter, it was sorted within a few days, no issue returning money to my account at all, i just sent my email associated with the account and it was sorted.

DO NOT DO A FREE TRIAL! This company is a complete scam. There is no customer service, they will not respond to emails or calls. They will charge you even if you turn the auto renew off. ABSOLUTE SCAM. Do not, I repeat, do not do any trials or subscriptions with these fraudsters. They should be ashamed of themselves

DO NOT take out the trial membership, i did and i set it to end after 5 days, even checked twice that it was due to end and yet it got changed back to automatic renewal and i was charged, this is a scam. i've tried emailing them and i am looking into who i report them too.

I also set to not renew(within time) at the end of my free trial, guess what, they took the money anyway. I have contacted my card company so should be OK as payment was still pending. This company should be closed down and prosecuted for fraud. Ancestry should be ashamed of being associated with and promoting Fold3.

I wish you could give 0 stars! This site is committing fraud by charging customers for the premium service when they have elected to not be on auto renewal. I have contacted them several times and I am not able to reach a live person. I am disputing the charge with my bank. Users beware DO NOT USE THIS SITE!!!!!! Despite what you elect you will be charged!

I wish I had checked reviews before doing a free trial, but I stupidly trusted it as I found the site through Ancestry.

I cancelled my free trial the moment I started it, so it wouldn’t auto-renew. I clearly remember doing this and double checking it was cancelled. Yet here we are, one week later, and I received an email to say that I have started my annual membership. Unfortunately I am now pushed into my overdraft as it is not a small amount that they withdraw, and I have had to email the company to remind them that I have NOT given them permission to take my money.

Seriously, don’t even bother with the free trial with Fold3. It’s not worth your time, and clearly isn’t free.

Edit - didn't lose money. Fold3 level of interest shown by a reply 18 months later!!!

nearly caught out by free trial, like many others. I set it not to auto-renew, happily checked today and found that although that appeared still to be the case, it was showing that I would be charged tomorrow when the trial ends. Clicked on cancel, took a screenshot and have had a confirmation email so I have ammo if they still do it.

this is very sharp practice as cancelling auto renew does not prevent charging. Be very, very careful.

Like many others leaving reviews I started a 7 day free trial to have a look to see if it would suit my research - I was careful to immediately cancel the auto renew and save the selection after checking out the site on the same day. Imagine my surprise when I received an email a week later informing me that I had taken a year's subscription and my account had been debited a years membership! I logged back in and saw that my account had miraculously been reset to auto renew!!!! Clearly I am not the only one judging by other reviews. I raised a complaint with them and got an auto reply saying they hoped to respond in 1-2 days. That has now passed and I have not received any reply. My next course of action is to notify my bank of this fraudulent activity! Stay clear folks!

I took a week's free trial. The first thing I did was go into my account and turn off the auto-renewal. I double-checked that the expiry date was correct. Mysteriously, the auto-renewal has turned itself back on and I've had an email telling me I've been charged for another year's membership. I've contacted them, but am not holding out much hope of getting my money back.

Edited to add: They did refund the payment without quibbling, so they get kudos for that, but the internet is littered with reviews saying the same thing. They need to get their account pages sorted so that this doesn't happen.

I took out a 7 days free trial with Fold3. The same day I took out the trial I selected the option on their website NOT to renew at the end of the 7 days free trial and to cancel the account. Despite this they have set up a subscription and have now taken payment from my account.

My husband took out a 7-day free trial and immediately went to the 'Cancel Membership' option to prevent the auto-renewal. It even said that his membership would expire on 31 October 2020 on the page. But - today he had an email saying they had taken out a full year's payment despite that! He has emailed them to request a refund and apology - will wait and see what happens next.

As with many others I cancelled during my free trial only to be charged afterwards for a full years membership. Unable to remove card details from website. AVOID.