MyHeritageReviews 6,487

I found the My Heritage software the best for onscreen interaction and without a trial period to worry about. Their support service has been for me outstanding. Both very responsive and solution orientated. Of course they are keen to retain your custom but as a retired person I welcome their reduced subscription offer for a long term commitment.

I ordered my kit the first week of November, thinking it would be the normal 6 week process. I received the kit the first week of December (which was ridiculously slow) turned it around immediately. It took 3 weeks for them to even acknowledge they had received it. What was to be a 2-3 DNA extraction in progress, is now 15 days and counting, They have not moved to the next piece of three remaining stages. At this rate I will not have my results back for months and months. DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE FOR YOUR DNA ANALYSIS!

The people who complain about auto renew are right; once they get your credit card they will bill you forever; I believe they hide this in the small print and fail to notify you adequately before your subscription is up so you can do something about it. They also don't tell you that you can just opt out of renewal; instead they call it "cancel my subscription." Canceling would be fine if you got your money back (or some of it) but if you know you will not get a refund and you cancel something you've already paid for, you would think your money is wasted since you've already paid it so why cancel. Cancel anyway (I THINK you may still get to use the subscription for the term you have paid for). I don't care, I still wouldn't use this website for anything and again this is deceptive. No decent business needs to auto renew any subscription, especially without your explicit permission. If you want to renew, you should be able to choose to at the time it expires or later; otherwise it should lapse. My recommendation if you want to use them (which I don't understand why you would, their information is either worthless or mostly available for free elsewhere) I highly recommend you use a temporary credit card so they can NEVER BILL YOU AGAIN. This was a very expensive lesson for me; I hope others can learn from it. The BBB should give them an F rating. The state they are headquartered in should investigate them for shoddy business practices.

They auto-renew your subscription without adequate notification! This practice is clearly to trick people into paying for an unwanted subscription. If they were doing this for any other reason, an email confirmation of renewing would be sent PRIOR to charging your credit card. Once charged, they will not issue a full refund.

So Dean from Heritage just responded with a message that there is a 30 day money back guarantee. Well, why was I not informed of that when I called 2 days after my auto-renewal for a refund. When I called, I was told: "there are no refunds". So, who is lying to me? The person I spoke to even went to his "manager" to see what he could do for me. They offered me a discounted membership - which I will not use.

Dean seems to have gone above and beyond what I expected in resolving this issue. He has issued a full refund and given me some free access for a while. I'll upgrade my review as soon as I see the refund in my account, but I have no reason for doubt.

Update - I received a full refund. Thank you, too bad I had to go through so much trouble but I'm satisfied.

When they charge you for the coming year, they do NOT notify you until after they charge and they refuse to cancel or refund me. I was charged $230 and called to cancel the service. When I said no, I want to cancel, they simple refused and charged my credit card the full price. Google them carefully and you will find this is a FREQUENT experience. The service is NOT that great and the site is full of bugs. Do not be fooled by the "free trial".

If they charge you for the coming year, they do NOT notify you until after they charge and they refuse to cancel or refund. I was charged $250 and called immediately to cancel the service. They haggled and tried to get me to accept 2 different discounts. When I said no, I want to cancel, they simple refused and charged my credit card the full price. Google them carefully and you will find this is a FREQUENT experience. The service is NOT that great and the site is full of bugs. Do not be fooled by the "free trial". 23andme is no longer associated with them, which is how I came to import my family information to the site.

Hi Dean,

I would like to express my utmost appreciation on the very punctual and totally professional way you have handled my financial predicament, it is so nice to know that there are still people in this world who care about the senior citizens. If anyone asks for a recommendation in the world of geneology I will gladly direct them to you, I am so glad that there are still people who are not absorbed in the me, me, me part of this world. Again thank you enormously for your speedy handling of this matter for me, you have made life a lot less stressful for me.

Jim Anderson

At the beginning, the use of the site and the conditions of subscription were - in any case for me - difficult to understand. Since then, I got acquainted with the program and I am really very satisfied. It's fun to use MyHeritage and I was delighted to be able to "feed" my Familytree thanks to all very appropriate Smart matches that I got. There are of course probably always improvements that canbe brought but I am confident MyHeritage work on it.
That being said, I particularly want to congratulate and thank the Support team. I had a small technical problem very recently (of my fault) and I received rather quickly detailed, clear, systematic, complete, well illustrated explanations, in a very professional but friendly message. I had the impression to be in touch with a friend delighted to help me. Thanks!

MT, Geneva (Switzerland)

PS: sorry if my English is not good, I'm of French mother tongue.

So after I ordered my DNA kit I tracked the order constantly. For some reason all of a sudden it said it was delivered but it sure wasn't. After trying to call the postal service and of course not getting through I kept on calling the customer service. After several tries I finally got through just to find out that they did not deliver anything and that they will send out a new package for me. Than a week later I see that I got an email saying that they refunded my money. The money is of course not on my account. So now all of a sudden I get a call from customer service trying to tell me that I tried to change my address after the kit was delivered. Also not true. I sure do not recommend this company to anyone. Total waste of time and money.