FMP does it again!

[GallowayLass]

For the 4th year in a row, FMP have somehow removed my “do not autorenew” choice in the 48 hours before the sub is due. I have just received an email receipt for a full price renewal. To say I am furious is an understatement.
Every time I complain about this, they claim it cannot happen but it blooming well does! I always turn off autorenew as soon as I restart my sub which is not until I get a decent discount by email.
I have sent them an internal complaint asking for my money back. Getting more than fedup with FMP. I will not take up any more of their offers until such times as 1921 census is included in the cost. I can wait as long as it takes.

[cbcarolyn]

how odd, wonder what they do, be interesting to see what the reply is.

[GallowayLass]

I have also just phoned my credit card company. This amount is not appearing in my app. They tell me it’s sitting in pending transactions at their end. I said then please make sure it’s refused and does not get charged to my account.
Apparently they can’t do that. I have to raise a dispute and I can’t do that till the charge appears on my account!!! They also can’t flag the payment at their end and start a dispute for me as soon as it goes through. I have to phone them again and be actually speaking to them at the time in order to start the dispute. I asked how long it would take to come out of pending and was told “a couple of days”.
FMP internal messaging also says my message should be answered within two days. What a lot of faff!

[Guest]

very naughty of them, they are pretty good at sorting things out though, so they should refund you no question.

[GallowayLass]

very naughty of them, they are pretty good at sorting things out though, so they should refund you no question.

Hope so Val.

[GallowayLass]

Email received from FMP. Thankfully a refund no problem but still no acceptance by them that there is a bug (or a deliberate piece of programming) in their auto renewal system. As for the bit I have highlighted - I blooming well know that. I reset it to ‘do not auto renew’ every time I pay yet every year something changes my settings. Ah well, at least I won’t have to phone the credit card people again to start a dispute.

“Good Afternoon

Thank you for your email.

I’m sorry to hear you don’t want to continue your Findmypast subscription at this time

Each new subscription to Findmypast is started on an automatic renewal basis, so you don’t have to resubscribe each time. You have the freedom to cancel whenever you need to, from the My Subscription section of your account. If the subscription is not cancelled before the renewal date it will renew automatically.

The automatic renewal is turned on whenever you make a new payment, so you would need to cancel this each time if you did not want to continue.

The good news is that you are within the 14 day cooling off period and eligible for a refund of the most recent renewal payment.

I confirm the amount of [xxxxxx] has been refunded – please allow up to 5 working days for the funds to be returned to you. I have cancelled your subscription and the automatic renewal option on your behalf, and your access to records has now ended.

Remember, you will continue to have access to your Findmypast account, the searches you have saved and your tree, and you can return at any time. We also add new records every week, which you can read about in our newsletters and on our Blog.

If I can assist you with anything in the future, please don’t hesitate to get back in touch.

Kind Regards

[xxxxxx]

Findmypast”

[PhotoFamily]

...it’s refused and does not get charged to my account.
Apparently they can’t do that. I have to raise a dispute and I can’t do that till the charge appears on my account!!! They also can’t flag the payment at their end and start a dispute for me as soon as it goes through. I have to phone them again and be actually speaking to them at the time in order to start the dispute. ...

That was my experience with my credit card company when someone (fraudulently) charged their airline ticket on my card. Middle of the pandemic, and someone charged more than US$3000...like I was going anywhere...Anyway, I couldn't stop a pending transaction and had to call back the next day to tell them to dispute it.

[GallowayLass]

PhotoFamily Flipping heck! That’s a massive amount to be down till the refund finally arrives which is usually about 5 working days after they agree to make it.

[kylejustin]

tbh i nearly didn't renew this year. they got rid of all prior existing subscriptions to bring it all into line with the new tiers they announced a couple years ago. their content is going downhill, most of their image collections are now on ancestry, and they only have the indexes (westminster, wales etc). they haven't added anything useful to my research for probably over a year now, too focused on american records to bring in revenue i think. their "biggest release of the year" was electoral rolls.....their only saving grace i think will be the 1921 census.

[ozgirl]

just out of curiosity (and because I am not sure whether I will renew my sub) I turned off the auto-renew on FMP. They do make you work for it though as I had to go through 3 different pages and give reasons before it finally confirmed that auto-renew was turned off and sent me an e-mail confirming this. Now have to wait and see whether it gets turned back on.

[GallowayLass]

just out of curiosity (and because I am not sure whether I will renew my sub) I turned off the auto-renew on FMP. They do make you work for it though as I had to go through 3 different pages and give reasons before it finally confirmed that auto-renew was turned off and sent me an e-mail confirming this. Now have to wait and see whether it gets turned back on.

Make sure you check the night before it’s due and take screenshot again. If it has gone back to auto renew, change it and do another screenshot. I’ve had the confirm email every year so don’t rely on it.

[Darksecretz]

just out of curiosity (and because I am not sure whether I will renew my sub) I turned off the auto-renew on FMP. They do make you work for it though as I had to go through 3 different pages and give reasons before it finally confirmed that auto-renew was turned off and sent me an e-mail confirming this. Now have to wait and see whether it gets turned back on.

can you not just ring them and cancel?

[GallowayLass]

Never tried that because my sub is to USA site and paid in $. Don’t fancy phone charges to USA. I first joined the USA site because they had what was called a Pioneer subscription which was always 50% discount on full price and once converted into £, it worked out less than 50% of a UK based Worldwide subscription as they used to call it. I just logged in to the UK site one I’d paid up. Pioneer stopped a few years ago so since then, I cancel each time each time by choosing “do not autorenew” and wait till the discount offers get to the level I want. Even FMP say themselves in their blurb that you can cancel anytime by simply choosing and saving the “do not autorenew” option within the “My Account” section.