I recently found out how little Ancestry.com cares about their paid subscribers. Here is a transcript of my e-mail to their customer support, their reply and my reply back to them. I feel quite frustrated with them yet they have somewhat of a monopoly on the internet based access to records, so I feel I have no other options but to continue to put up with their inadequacies and lack of care for their members or else discontinue my family research and the book project I'm currently working on.
My original complaint was:
Support center & Customer service managers:
Between last night and this morning, I have been unable to view census images. I feel that it is a problem with the site, and not with my computer because I have two computers and am unable to view the images on either of my two computers. This problem has also happened while trying to view some newspaper images as well.
I called the support phone number and received an automated response saying the support center was closed. It is 9:35 AM EST Someone should be there to take my call! This only adds to my frustration!
I had a subscription for several years and stopped renewing for a year or two because the site was running so slowly that I couldn't stand to use it. I then decided to give you another try feeling that enough time had passed for you to add servers and install upgrades to handle the traffic. I must say that while the speed has improved a little it still is not what I expect for my subscription fee, and now the problems I've had for the past 12 hours or more with error messages instead of census images have made me want to find an alternative to using your site once again!
Census and newspaper images are the bulk of my traffic on your site and I am currently wasting my time in trying to view them.
I expect a reply regarding what you are doing to fix the problem, a message to let me know when the problem is remedied AND most importantly, a full credit to my account for the time this area of the site is not working properly, beginning 12 hours ago and ending when you have the problem solved and have contacted me to let me know I will not be wasting my time in using your site once again.
Lets get on the ball people! If you charge a fee you need to provide the service 100% of the time!
Their reply:
We appreciate your message.
We believe this issue has been resolved and fixed. We apologize for any inconvenience. If you are still experiencing difficulties with this issue, please let us know by replying to this message and giving the specific details of the error you are encountering. If not, we hope that you will continue to enjoy Ancestry.com without any difficulties.
We will not be able to issue any type of refund for the time this image portion of the site was down, as other parts of the site were still working. For future reference, our office ours are M-F 10-6 EST.
If there is anything else with which we might assist you, please let us know.
Kathryn
Member Solutions
Ancestry.com
My final response:
Thank you for showing me how little customer service means to your company.
When my cable Internet connection is down the cable company gives me a credit for the time it was down regardless of the fact that I still have tv signal at the time... The point is that I'm not watching tv I'm trying to access the Internet so they credit my account.
In your case I was trying to access census and newspaper images and they were not there when I wanted to see them. Regardless of what may have been available, the fact of the matter was that what I wanted to view and am paying to have access to was not available when I wanted to see it resulting in a wasting of my time and money due to your poor service. I had no use for what WAS available, but yet you use that as your reasoning for not crediting my account.
What if you went to get gas in your car and they charged you for the gas but had none to give you, then said they couldn't credit your account because they still had Pepsi and candy bars in stock? That's basically what your reply was to me in this case.
I'll be sure to tell all my friends and acquaintances in the genealogy circles about your wonderful customer service.
So to all out there who are thinking of subscribing to Ancestry.com... BEWARE! Know what kind of service you will be getting before you subscribe. There is a huge amount of data available on their site and it would be well worth it if the site ran smoothly, but my frustration is with their poor attitude and their flimsy excuse as to why they did not want to credit my account a few bucks when they were clearly not supplying me with access to the particular records and follow up service I had paid for when I subscribed.
Some may think me out of line in expecting a credit but to those who feel that way I say put yourself in my shoes, pay the enormous fee and then when you have the precious time to commit to research, only be able to access things that do not pertain to what you are in need of. Go to a resturaunt, order steak with wine and say nothing when the waiter brings you chicken and grape juice but charges you for the steak and wine.
Better yet, pay the bill when the waiter doesn't bring you anything but the check and says you still owe for the steak and wine because while they were out of those, they DID however have chicken and grape juice you just didn't want that. If there were alternative online sources I'd definately discontinue my subscription but the alternatives are not available so I'm stuck with their "service" or none at all.
Geneaolgy hunter
York, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
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