I received an e-mail from Ancestry today letting me know that on August 21 2016 my subscription will be renewed at $299. Whoa ! Not what I paid with the AARP discount in 2015.
Last year I read on the AARP site or newsletter that being a senior you are entitled to a discount. When I received my renewal email from Ancestry I called about the AARP Discount. After talking with an agent regarding the AARP discount my subscription was reduced substantially. I was told it is a recurring subscription amount every year after.
Today after seeing the increase over what I paid last year, I phoned Ancestry. The agent told me it was just for one year as an introductory offer. I disagreed. I told her I was assured that this would be my subscription price since I am over 65 until I decided to cancel my membership.
I did my best to let her know that retired people with ample time to persue their ancestry hobby are the suscribers who make up the majority of the people searching for ancestors and don't have much income after retirement to afford this amount of money, especially since we the subscribers are the ones adding information that keeps people coming to Ancestry. (Of course I understand that there are costs in running a business)
This is especially irritating because all the information we add; Documents, Photos, Maps, Wills, Probate, Family Bibles, Vital Records we add to our family trees, creates documentation that Ancestry "re-sells" to us the subscribers. I even volunteer to do indexing for Ancestry.com.
At the end of the call to Ancestry the agent offered me a 6 month membership for $99 that expires on January 21, 2017... and also wanted my permission to auto-renew at $149 for 6 months on that date. So it is the same price... 6 months at $99 + the next 6 months is $149 = totaling $248.
I told her I would accept the 6 months for $99 but NOT to auto re-new because I want to wait and see if there is a discount offered at that time. She also advised me that I need to "renew" the day before the expiration date so my account would not be cancelled (to see if there are any discounts offered at that time) in January 2017, to prevent the auto-renewal of $149 for another 6 months. So, the price does not really change, they are just shuffeling the walnut shells around... we didn't make it to retirement age being this gullible and dumb to be fooled by this leaf giant.