MyHeritage

On 4th May, 2020, I paid $172.76 AU for Premium Membership of My Heritage. On 5th June, 2020, one MONTH later, I finally got the technical issues dealt with and was able to fully use the site. The site would sync until 95% and then it would not go any further. This meant that the next 3 steps were unable to proceed. I initially asked for help with a phone call. MyHeritage wanted to know my credit card number. I refused to give this number over the phone. I knew that all the money had been removed from my Teachers Mutual Bank and this was able to be checked. I then sent 3 well spaced emails, reference numbers #298450292, #124444547 and finally #162980344. I received a reply at last from Paola who said I was using an old version of the site builder and I should update it to the latest version following the steps she recommended. I had TWO icons in my computer and had no idea which icon was the old and which was the new. By the grace of God I happened to have in the house with me, a few days later, a person who had advanced computer skills. With great difficulty he managed to get the site working successfully for me. Now that Technical Service finally deigned to reply to my 3 emails I love the site. It is magnificent. For many years I have used the FREE site run by the Church of Latter Day Saints and never once had a problem with them.

I let my DNA being tested by MyHeritage and 3 other companies. Only at MyHeritage I turned out to have many Dutch matches. To my great satisfaction and joy two of these were the starting point to finally identify the formerly unknown father of my grandfather! For this porpuse I also built a large tree and my experience is that this is very easy to do. Many smart matches were very helpful. And I could visit a number of newly found family members.
Once I made a long telephone call with the help desk about the privacy of the DNA results. This was because a person I would like to test was very suspicious so I wanted to know more details from MyHeritage. Although I know the misuse of DNA-results for commercial ends is currently a matter of debate, the help desk convinced me that there is no reason to distrust MyHeritage in this respect.
I watched a MyHeritage webinar by Els Leijs on family search which was really informative. Her work is very important for those who deeply suffer because of an unknown father or mother or other family member. Every DNA sample tested helps to be successful in such research.
Finally the help desk helped me several times and explained me what I wished to know. Summarizing I have to say that MyHeritage provides me a wonderful way to discover my family!

I transferred to MY HERITAGE from an old program but because of my age and the 14 years of research in my former program contained but would not work on Windows 10 I needed to change.
I am hopeful that my son(s) will also wish to access the data after I depart this life and having a web site which is accessible only by agreed people and my data from the web site should be accessible to my successors. I find it a more sophisticated program than my former one. There was a problem with the GEDCOM transfer which the Help services persevered with and solved = MyHeritage really worked on the problem,.

I now see my task us being able to add notes to various members of the family which have emerged and help bring a 3rd dimension to the data of some individuals

I still have some points on which I am not clear in operating the program eg Marriage details are not recorded (at least I haven't discovered where. They are vital to genealogy. I also need a guarantee that my successors will be able to access my data (this issue is mentioned in one of the Reviews)

My only frustration is that the excellent Help line service is not always easy to access. It would help if the time Zones for accessing the help Staff ( based in Israel) were made clearer. I have experienced messages such as 'No one available' when I am calling in the time periods indicated' or 'traffic problems' or even 'at dinner' This can be somewhat frustrating.

HOWEVER all the help line staff I have encountered could not have been more helpful - Its accessing them which I find might be improved. I can't speak too highly of their courtesy and helpfulness. These views are after a period of about 6 months using the program.

Our family site with over 1300 names was blocked! The manager of our site passed away I wrote to Myheritage explaining and saying I wanted to continue running as I had already been a member since 2009 and helped my cousin with a lot of the input. I paid for an upgrade which was accepted and told a letter would follow. It didn't but an email did refunding my £64 with no explanation. I tried to get into site but it said it no longer existed more stress. I sent at least 4 emails to the help support not receiving any replies until yesterday saying how sorry MyHeritage were and the site had been given to a cousin of mine who had nothing to do with it at all. She was very surprised when I contacted her and has since written to them. Today came a reply the site has been put in my name and unblocked with no explanation of refund or disregarding all information sent to them. As you can tell I am not happy with the way this has been handled and didn't need to go through all this after losing a member of the family which was bad enough. Explaining what went wrong would have been nice.
Since sending this review Myheritage site has once again been block when trying to access I am taken to another family tree belonging to my Cousin and it is say the site I am looking for no longer exists.
I wrote another review and a reply came back from Rafael asking me to send him details of the ID number and how sorry he was I had been having so much trouble. This was days ago I am still waiting for his acknowledgement and an answer to what is going on!

I have tried to connect with customer service since January 12,2017. I am currently using a free version of the site and have some questions about upgrading. It doesn't make sense as to why MyHeritage won't respond to a customer who wants to upgrade service and become a paying customer.

I have called six times and have never been able to connect with anyone. They are either closed, at lunch (today at 2:41 pm), or "not available at this time."

I have also emailed via the website and received one email back asking for my phone number so they could call me. This conversation could have easily been addressed via email. I did give my phone number, but it didn't matter, I never received a call. I emailed the same email address again three times. Nothing.

I tried posting on the Facebook page. No response. I then noticed that ALL posts from people other than My Heritage official posters were deleted. I tried again and also sent 2 private messages with absolutely no reply.

As a last resort, I tweeted to My Heritage. Again, not a single word from them.

I know, I know -- I should have given up LONG ago. I do see the value of the site and hear from others that they have had some great results and have used the site to enhance their research efforts. I just kept trying. When I called today during their listed hours of availability and received a message that they were unavailable because they were on lunch break at 2:41 pm (their time zone) I decided I have had enough. It shouldn't be this hard to give a business your money.

This is mostly about the service MyHeritage offers and not the validity of their analysis. I was getting a second opinion having done an Ancestry.com analysis. Firstly the length of time it took for me to receive their kit was over the limit MyHeritage claimed it would take (i6 days!). When I checked the tracking I discovered their were delays from their side from the very start. For example it took 3 days simply to get to NY airport and then it sat there for 4 days for no reason. After I sent my completed kit back I waited about 2 weeks with no sign of it being received at the lab. I received no reply to my email querying this. A week later when I rang I was told there was a backlog at the lab but when I asked about why that would prevent a simple log-in of receipt I was given very vague answers. Another weej or so and still nothing I rang and this time spoke to someone in Israel who told me to ring again if I hadn't received notification after 1 month! Some assurance that was. Eventually after almost a month I received notification that my kit had arrived and was being processed. From that point I waited for the results which came 2 months after I registered for the kit. I then sent an email requesting some clarification of the results. Ten days later after still receiving no response other than an acknowledgement I rang again. After a 22-minute wait when I was told I was next in the queue I got to speak to Desmond in Ireland. Desmond was patient and knew what he was talking about and clarified my understanding of the results. Desmond in fact saved the day for MyHeritage. The results were in general accord with my results from Ancestry.com once Desmond has explained some of the details. My bet is that MyHeritage is simply not employing enough people to do the job they promise and which we pay for and without the sterling work of those who do do the work the management and owners might find themselves out of a business (and the prodits they are surely making from it.)

I had signed up with MyHeritage when I wanted to build some sort of a family tree to see where one side of my family came from. Then I seemed to have more time available which I used to search out details to fill in the spaces. Then my domain- based email address expired. Because I hadn't been using the service I wasn't conscious that I had stopped getting helpful suggestions about people I might have been related to. Not being able to remember when my membership started I thought MyHeritage will email me to ask me to renew it. But of course I forgot they only had an address which no longer existed. The first indication I had was that a payment showed up in my bank statement. Trying to prepare myself for a verbal duel with a robotic voiced call centre clerk, I phoned. I have listened to many accounts on Radio4 of people doing battle with airlines, telephone providers and subscription services so I knew what to expect.
But no. The phone rang, a recording told me I was first in the queue and in no time I was talking to Eve who was eager to hear this rather boring story. "That's not a problem," she says when I explained that I really hadn't intended to renew, "I'll cancel that and arrange to refund the payment we took." Then she sent me an email confirming all this and asking, very politely, if I would write what you have just read.

I like everyone else on here signed up for the 14 day free trial. After about 4 or 5 days a female rep called me and asked if I was using the 14 day free offer and if liked the site. I said I kind of liked it but some stuff was confusing because it said with the free trail I could access everything, but it wouldn't allow me to access "smart matches". She tried to talk me into buying in before the 14 days were up, but I was not yet interested for the $175.00 price tag for the "complete" program. About 5 days later a guy called and asked if I liked the free trial and offered me a deal of $111.00 for the year which I thought was great. After my credit info was completed I asked if I had to do anything else and he said "No, I took care of everything, and when you log in next time you will have full access to everything".
Which I did, however last Saturday another $119.40 was taken out of my account. That comes to $230.00 plus!
I called customer Service (billing) and the lady told me I had purchased 2 separate subscriptions, but could not tell me what both of them covered and that the guy would call me that had sold me the $111.00 subscription. That was last Saturday, and today is Thursday. I have called three times and got recordings. I also sent an email describing all of the above, and received a "token" reply that I was to wait until I am contacted.
I have contacted my bank and asked to dispute the $119.40, but an investigator will look into it and contact me within 10 days.
All that I wanted was the Premium Plus which the first guy said I was getting and nothing else needed to be done.
This in my opinion rings of a class action Lawsuit!

I was helped considerably by support team member after an annoying start in which the Activation of the DNA kit on My heritage web site would not take happen when the required button was clicked at several attempts. I left it in frustration to try and sort itself out for 2 hours while I ate a meal and undertake other activities before I returned to the web site which would still not activate as required.
I went to Support, which had an annoying "it you want... press button X" fiendish scheme designed to frustrate and annoy the hell out of everybody but finally got through to Megan in the Support team in Co. Cork who was really exceptionally good, knowledgeable, helpful and patient with me in sorting the problem - even if she said "perfect" a few too many times as each step of her instructions was achieved. Fortunately I had already downloaded the My Heritage app to my tablet previously but thought it would be easier on my PC instead as I had to go to the next room to fetch my tablet. I advise all prospective My Heritage DNA kit purchasers to download the app first if possible as you will find it is much easier in activating your Kit. Because of Megan's help I rated 4 stars when I would otherwise have given less.

The site is not on a par with the other larger genealogy sites. It seems to mainly consists of other peoples family trees (often of questionable composition). For US based research, original source documents can be found, but finding documents not already on Ancestry or Family search are hard to come by. When you do find one, the image quality is sometimes so poor you can't read it (why does MyHeritage scan or present at such low resolutions?). And, often the document is provided by a third party provider and you have to leave the MyHertitage site and jump to the 3rd party site to read the original document. I have also found a good number of their source citations incorrectly titled. For example why is a dutch death record that occurred in 1968 showing a source citation that says "Netherlands, Civil Deaths, 1811-1965"? Finally, it's almost impossible to print source documents in a way that also captures the source data (like Ancestry and others nicely provide). Downloading documents is also generally not possible. I will give MyHeritage cudos for having fairly good record coverage of the Netherlands, but that's probably because the Netherlands has good record keeping to start with and has made many of their records freely available through many of the their regional archives that MyHeritage has linked with. While I continue to use this site, I have to admit I'm mostly dissappointed with it's overall capability and functionality relative to what other sites are doing. MyHeritage needs to step up their game.

This is a total scam, their website is terrible, and when your free trial is over MyHeritage will charge you for a full year. It took me waiting on hold 3 times, with dropped calls from their end and no contact from the billing department to finally get a hold of someone. If you have given them your info and been charged call tech support and do not let them get you off the phone until you have demanded to speak to someone from billing as contacting their billing department through their posted support number is impossible. Do not email them as you will get no response. I have finally gotten through after being very firm and stating that in their terms and conditions which you signed for the free trial that it clearly states that if you are dissatisfied you are guaranteed a full refund as long as it is within 30 days of the purchase. Obviously they will try to give you the run around until after that time but be persistent and demand to continue to speak with their higher ups until you finally reach their billing department, Make sure they know you have read the terms you agreed to and tell them you know in them that you are entitled to a refund. They will then offer you 50% back with out cancelling your subscription or a 100% refund and will cancel your subscription. Please put these scammers out of business and do not give them any of your hard earned money. They are a complete joke and will do anything they can to keep your money. Know your rights and what you are entitled to and they will be forced to give your money back. I have been promised a full refund though it is yet to be seen and may take 3-5 business days. I am thoroughly disgusted by their business practices and their complete lack of help through all of this. Do yourself a favor and avoid this company at all cost. The other more well known genealogy site is much more helpful. Gilad Japhet should be jailed for his way of running this company.

I have had mostly good experience with the support. Right now I have several support issues open.

The free desktop software is also a good tool to verify that your tree has consistent data, an integrity checker that is also included in the website. This checking is very good. The Family Tree Builder software lets you have a nice copy of your tree off-line. However it does NOT copy the paid sources you have found online. After your subscription expires all the sources are closed behind a pay wall.

People complaining about automatic renewal should read the e-mail and go into the account setting and turn off the automatic renewal if MyHeritage do not want it to be billed automatically. I find this NOT an issue at all, except when they call you to persuade you to extend your subscription.

Earlier I gave 4 stars in anticipation of improved SmartMatching that validates that the dates at least are reasonable before suggesting bad data to be copied into my tree.
Well nothing has happened, and I have found that if it suggest to copy from another family tree that has more than one spouse, the children get mixed up with only wife only and the marriage events gets confused. This has cause so much pain that I cannot recommend using SmartMatch or Instant Discoveries. Only real sources seems to have good value. You cannot even see what sources other people have used to build their tree from. This is so different at Ancestry, where sourcing what you do is the nerve of building a family tree.

I got the DNA kit all the way to Norway in a reasonable time. But the results are so confusing. First my son was 2% of a special group. So I was curious and order a second DNA kit. I was 0%, so I ordered a third for my wife. Now the testing profile used had changed and in the new profile neither of us three were of this group.
But the really strange thing is that my son is according to MyHeritage is over 30% English, but me and my wife is 0%. So I do not trust their DNA analysis at all.
After all AFTER you have got the results, you are informed it is only a BETA service.

Pro:
1. Integrity checker tool both online and in the desktop software
2. Support is usually efficient.
3. Once you have record access, you get the sources for more than the US.

Cons:
1. The SmartMatching is actually only referring to other peoples family trees. This is probably ok for the first generations.
2. There are just too many SmartMatches you get lost in finding the good ones.
3. SmartMatches might give you lots of bad data without you being warned before you copy and do a tree validation.

So far, I've been quite pleased with MyHeritage's customer service. My DNA results were delayed because I ordered them during the Thanksgiving sale when the company was overwhelmed--and then, the company had to use the second sample because the results couldn't be read on the first. I contacted the company when each event happened, and customer services reps reassured me all was well. And it was. I received my results and contacted the reps with any questions. Since then, I have not encountered problems. Nevertheless, because after I posted a link on Facebook and notes about findings for siblings, nephews and nieces, first cousins and their children, I went to the MyHeritage Facebook page. There, I read horror stories about MyHeritage billing persons--without their knowledge--for Premium accounts. Thus, I phoned the company tonight to ensure that my plan would downgrade to Basic after the Premium account ended. Lorna assured me that it would--and I could phone should something go awry. She was courteous, informative, and understood my concerns. I will monitor the account--and the webpage details how to downgrade to Basic. I urge all users to check their accounts and do the same to avoid being charged for a plan MyHeritage didn't opt to use. And thanks again, Lorna, for your kind help.

After a very strong email sent yesterday I received a speedy reply saying Myheritage account was ready to view.
This letter then came straight after.
Dear Dawn,

Thank you for your reply and I apologize for the delayed response.
There was a technical issue with your family tree and we had to get the development team involved in order to locate your family site.
I'm happy to let you know that we were able to locate a backup of the Audoire Family Tree and we've uploaded it to your account. Please note however that we weren't able to restore any photos.
Due to the inconvenience, I've processed a refund for your subscription and gave you a free Complete subscription for 2 years for the value of GBP 340. You will be able to use all the features until April 2nd, 2020.
Please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience.
Should you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
Eden

As you will see all my photo's going back to 2009 have been lost which to me is unacceptable and refund of money plus a further two year free subscription will not bring these back. Some of these members have now passed away.
I am most upset to think with a press of a key the Audoire site had been deleted with no reason given and for the second time since Nov 2017. I feel I can not rely on Myheritage any longer but have accepted their terms for the other members and will let them all decide if MyHeritage want to continue. I do not want to go through all the stress again. For this to have happened twice within 12 months and loss of all family photo's plus lack of communications I shall not be recommending to others.
Dawn Auddoire-Jones

On 12/22/19 I purchased the annual family tree package for $209. On 12/23/19 I went onto my bank account and found that I was billed twice for this, debiting my account for $418 instead of $209. I immediately contacted my bank and started a complaint against My Heritage. The on 12/24/19 I went onto my bank account and found yet another $209 charge from My Heritage pending against my account. Called my bank and MyHeritage put an immediate block so that My Heritage could no longer continue to charge my account with recurring charged that appeared to be happening every 2 days and was able to block this 3rd pending charge. I contacted My Heritage again, and they kept saying they couldn't see these other charges, so at that point I demanded a full refund for the original purchase price of $209. The fact nvestigation into the double billing on 12/22/19 was completed and a $209 credit hit my account on 12/27/19. On 12/26/19 I received an email from a Sebastian saying: "per your request, I have issued a full refund for the original purchase of your subscription." He said it could take 7-10 days for it to appear in my account; should have been in my account around 1/10/20 or before! It is now 1/19/20 and no credit has hit my account for the original purchase price of my subscription of $209. The only credit that has appeared in my account was "recurring payment reversal on 12/27/19 BLS My Heritage Ltd" as it appears on my bank statement. This recurring payment reversal was a result of the best nvestigation into the double billing that My Heritage charged against my account on 12/22/19! It has nothing to do witness the issuance of the full refund for the original purchase price of $209 as promised by this Sebastian (this would not show as a "recurring payment")! Sebastian never issued this full refund to me! I have gone round and round with him and another person at My Heritage to no avail! I have filed a complain nest with the BBB which shows over 2700 complaints against this company within the past two years! They owe me $209 for the full purchase price of the subscription per Sebastian's email on 12/26/19.

Beware of this company; a fraud!

I paid the subscription for 1 year with my paypal in July 2015 to have the possibility for a shot at the book as suggested in their web site and over 2500 names or so when you pay for the full subscription. Along the way in September 2015 while creating my tree I renamed my tree. Well guess what your subscription ONLY applies to the firstly named tree. So for a full year every time I was trying to access information about somebody a page came up that said you have to pay 9.95 per month to have access to the information of that particular individual. I just recently discover that while I downloaded the book and went to Staples to print it. 105 pages and I noticed that some names (while showing on my builded tree)do not show up in the 105 pages book it says Mr. Or Mrs Unknown. I sent them an e-mail and MyHeritage never answered of course they always answered my e-mails before regarding any other sort of issues but not this time because I rattle their cages and told them point blank that either it`s a bug in their software or that would be their scam to make money. So folks take it from me my sub was legit but by renaming my tree and it doesn`t say anywhere that if you rename you tree your sub is only for the first build tree bingo they just got your money and when you reach 250 names in your tree, you hand up with Mr. And Mrs Unknown in your tree only the dates shows but not the names. Now I will have to find a way to hack this thing and add the missing names in my book. This will be time consuming, it took me 1 year to build my tree but just throw in that scam at the end when I renamed my tree 1 month after my subscription and now they want me to renew and gives me discount ya right. All your e-mails are now going directly in my spam box. See Ya Oh and by the way folks who paid with paypal and don`t want to renew just go into your account and remove them from an automatic renewal first thing I did after paying them because the 1 year subscription was planned but never a renewal and with this scam they`ve got now NEVER will I renew

I have been using MyHeritage for many years and have had a PremiumPlus subscription since 2017.
I really enjoy working with the PC software.
I also use the Internet variant and the apps on IPhone (business) and Huawei (private)

After I recently changed my password, the synchronization with the PC software no longer works (the password change works without any problems with the IPhone and Huawei)
I'm stuck in an endless loop because the PC software keeps asking to generate a new password.
Password changed - new attempt to synchronize - prompt to change password - etc.

All attempts to get support have so far failed.
The phone (+49) *******922 is either busy or I am here in an endless loop.
So far only consolation by email:
"Thank you for contacting us. My name is Anna, and I'd be happy to assist you. I hope you are well!
I understand you are having an issue syncing your Family Tree Builder. In order to get this looked into, I am passing your case onto our dedicated technical team and someone from their department will be in touch with you as soon as MyHeritage receive your case.
Thank you for your patience, and if you have any other queries or concerns in the meantime, please feel free to message us again anytime.
I hope you have a lovely day!
Kind regards"

Unfortunately, I cannot confirm the promise I received with the purchase:
"You are now a premium customer and enjoy our premium customer service as well as all other premium benefits in the Family Tree Builder..."

What a shame.

BR
Michael Maisch

Entering into a fourteen day free trial it quickly became apparent that the site could not provide what I needed. I received notification that MyHeritage had charged me £90.
When I contacted them to explain I would not be using the service I was told a refund was not possible. First I was offered a 25% refund with a lengthy explanation of how I was not using the site correctly. I patiently allowed the representative, Samuel, to patronise me for some time but insisted that I was not willing to pay for a service which I did not need and would not use under any circumstances. He then offered a 50% refund. I repeated that I was not interested and requested a full refund. He said this was not possible and that the refunds offered were something he had never done before and were exceptional. Eventually I lost patience with the hard sell and informed him that I did not have the funds available to pay and that if they persisted in removing money from my bank account I would be overdrawn and penalised by the bank.
At this point, despite his previous position, he said a full refund would be issued.
I have received an email from myheritage.com confirming a refund of £90.
I have yet to see the funds deposited into my account.
Moral of story: If you have the misfortune to become entangled with this unpleasant company do not be swayed by their insistence on payment, do not believe the lying representative, stick to your guns. Better still, do not sign up in the first place.
Update: Refund received by Paypal.

MY original complaint was two fold: Myheritage would not load. Had to re-install. EVEN the backup GED files were deleted preventing using my tree! That's 2 hacks in such a short time! Not going to check others until I attempt to use them. I told you about the double even triple reboots I did to get back to normal. Plus, I had 10 trees and needed to delete 9. That was the first response to solve by you.

What I have learned mostly by my own indirectly is one issue I have is trying to use more than one computer to access builder and online site by my desktop and my PC laptop. Now, I am not sure what must be the proper operation actions considering this. It seems sometimes I must again import my latest GED file to continue as each time I try to use builder it wants me to attempt to load a file which is an old one having 2699 relatives whereas the number is 2723. Basically, I was able to recover from my previous problems but not a form of confusion continues each time I use either builder or access the online site.

Judging the assistance I received did not approach to solve my issues in a logical structured way. First, I complained I could not function with MyHeritage. That was my primary complaint. Second, was the issue having 10 trees and I didn't want that many. MyHeritage contacted me the first time only referring to the multiple tree issue which was minor. Later, a different person attempted help. Then one suggested another method which did work in allowing me to function with the builder program.

I feel the aid I received was rather haphazard. Courteous. Friendly. But not comprehensive. They didn't really ask questions to learn possible personal actions such as using 2 different computers.

It wasn't until SOPHIE? Put together a well thought out multiple action plan which was what I had expected to be proposed from the beginning.

Sincerely,
Robert Harrison

After months of waiting for my DNA results. I truly believe I only got the results due to posting a bad review on ReviewFeeder. But anyway, my DNA estimate came back as almost 100 percent European. My mother has papers that says she is 25% Cherokee Indian. I was very confused especially since my wife's grandmother was found on census records as being a born Choctaw and her grandmother always told her of this. So I called Myheritage, today MyHeritage said that they have only been doing Native American DNA since December, and will update my results within 6 weeks. They said they were having a hard time deciphering Native Americans, with the Brits. Yet no where on the website does it say that. It also implies that your ethnicity estimates will not change. I am very confused by this, but will wait and see what happens. But my results have been there since February 2. My wife's parents believe the whole thing is a scam, and will not take the test. I wonder, was this all just a bunch of bologna? Has anyone else had this problem. I would like to take a test through Ancestery.com but, I am not rich by all means and do not have money to be blowing off in the wind. Any feedback would be good feedback, please help! Zero percent Native American for both Myself and my wife.