Newspapers Reviews 293

I have joined and canceled after a free trial using a second email address (to avoid spam) and was billed repeated over and over again after canceling (to over $400). They do not send confirmations after canceling, and why would they since they don’t cancel your “trial membership” at all? They also bill under a different name (ANC…) so it is easy to mistake the charges on your bank account for legitimate charges. Their reviews are overwhelmingly negative. They hide their identity on bank statements and also on WhoIs. I am attempting to get my money back for years worth of charges. But at least I have learned not to trust such websites. Apparently, similar sites are just as bad. Please don’t make the very expensive mistakes that I have made.

In 2018 and 2019 I had a subscription that allowed me access to tremendous amounts of information, in seemingly endless newspaper articles, all across the country. Then, 2020 happened and I had to cancel. Starting my subscription back up in 2021, I couldn't find anything! Everywhere I looked, newspapers were GONE!! MISSING!! WHERE DID THEY ALL GO?? Even ones I had clipped articles were GONE!! YEARS and DECADES of previously available newspapers EVAPORATED!! AND FOR ANCESTRY.COM AND NEWSPAPERS.COM TO CONTINUE TO NOT ONLY CHARGE MORE FOR LESS, THEY DIDN'T UTTER A SINGLE WORD THAT A MAJORITY OF THEIR DATA IS GONE. GOOGLE SEARCHES HAVE BEEN SCRUBBED SO THAT PEOPLE WON'T FIND OUT AOBUT IT UNTIL ITS TOO LATE. SHAME ON THEM, TREATING SUBSCRIBERS LIKE CRAP WILL DOOM YOUR BUSINESS TO FAILURE. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!! AND DON'T ANSWER ME WITH A "SORRY ABOUT YOUR FRUSTRATION, EMAIL US, AND WE'LL CONTINUE TO IGNORE YOU."

This is just a scam. I paid to have newspapers.com, only to discover that nearly every single paper is considered "extra" and they want more money to view the articles you have found.

I am a retired librarian, and pride myself on my search skills. I am trying to obtain obituaries using this source, and have been very disappointed: there are a lot of gaps in the coverage of certain newspapers, and no coverage of others. For example, there are several months missing from the Altoona Mirror, and of course, the month I need is in the gap. Not sure why the Johnstown paper is not included at all, perhaps a copyright or licensing issue. In any case, I probably will not be renewing my subscription. Disappointing.

i wanted to add my "one star" rating. I took advantage of a promotion so I could research ancestors who lived in a particular upstate New York town only to find out that the newspaper I was interested in had no editions past Feb. 1951! The newspaper still publishes today so there are 70 years of articles that are not included. I contacted customer service via email twice and have never received a reply, or even an acknowledgment that my inquiry was received. I wish I had investigated their online rating before I was duped into the subscription. I assume there will be no refund forthcoming (as I requested) so I feel my only option is to help deter others from subscribing.

I am disappointed. I have been doing research and genealogy for 30 years. I have news articles from that came from Stout University that are from the 1880's and 1940's that I cannot find on Newspapers.com !
My articals were passed on to me by relatives that have Newspaper Archives. I have voiced my concerns to them and heard nothing in 20 days ! This site sucks and I want a refund !

I was concerned with the negative reviews but I needed to expand my historical resources. I had managed to locate two important articles from Newspaper.com for free during my internet searches so I knew there might be more. I opted to purchase a $20 (rounded) month subscription using a Visa gift card (I avoid using my personal card when ever possible). My first impression is good, navigation and searching work well. On the con side I had hoped to have more local papers available but I can work with this for now. My advice: register for free and search for what you need. You can't read the articles that you find but it will help you determine if the site is worth the money. Cancelling appears to be a click away but I'm not ready to take that step yet. But my gift card will protect me if that should be an issue. Good luck!

I wrote this for one reason: I was charged almost $75 for a service extension that I didn't think I signed up for. I asked for a refund, and was given one immediately. It helped that I check my bank account daily, and asked the day it was charged to my account. But there was no haggling, and while many here may have not had the same experience, I would suggest quick action, and professionalism will get you a refund with this and other situations like it.

Why am I paying extra for access to this site via Ancestry when 99% of the items I want to view, I am unable to, because I am not subscribed to the higher priced subscription? Come on ancestry, stop ripping your customers off.

Simply put, this is an upcharge scam. Same as Ancestry's 3 Fold access. I paid a premium but still did not have access to the newspapers I needed. Those required an additional "premium" upcharge.

What a scam.

Thank you for your response but it is almost beyond belief that someone would reach out to me over 16 months after I posted my issue. I don't know if this is a corporate initiative to now attempt to be responsive to this product's eighty percent+ disapproval rating but it's too little, too late for me. As I indicated in my post, the very poor customer service rendered for this product and the parent company's lack of ownership of problems relating to this brand caused me to cancel this subscription and my Ancestry subscription when it expired. I will never again, knowingly, support any products or brands of this parent company.

Very misleading, and upscaling to a more expensive subscription, did not help much. MANY states have few or no newspapers. I have searched for obits in MI, that I know exist, and get no results. I did find a few in other states. Memberships are paying for them to acquire more newspapers. Searching on Ancestry often leads to a website where you can buy the obit from the newspaper.

I wanted access to the site for a short period of time. I was unknowingly enrolled in an auto renew billing cycle a year ago and was charged over $50. At that point I tried to cancel my subscription and get a refund but received no emails or phone calls after writing emails and leaving voice messages. I once again was Auto renewed for over $50 and cannot get a hold of anybody at the company. This is a shady company and does not deserve your business.

Continual upselling. Whatever i want to see suddenly requires additional purchase.

Same problem as many people on here. I did not know that I signed up for this service. I contacted them and all they kept saying was "you signed up...blah blah" and I said that I hadn't. I intend to go back to my credit card and claim for fraud. Maybe they will take a further look into their dealings.

I didn't know the newspaper.com bunch were owned by Ancestry. ANcestry is pricey and not brilliant, but I find it more useful than not, so I keep using it.
I have used newspapers.com a few times a couple of years ago, and it was quite good for 19th century Irish newspapers then - but very limited. It still is. But the service offered is certainly not worth the money.
I was not aware that I had signed up to pay anything when I availed of the free week offer last January.
But by reading in this forum, I see that there is some small print somewhere...in Europe, this would be illegal, so there would be no problem getting your bank to simply block all payments from such and such a company. Indeed, the bank will even repay you the money that has been taken, or will pursue the company to do so. If the company is European, that is.
It is also illegal to have very clear and obvious conditions if any payment or money is involved and it is also illegal for websites based in the EU not to have very easy 'unsubscribe' buttons.
It's a disgrace that there is no 'cancel' option on their website.
It's not feasable for me to phone Ohio from Ireland, so I rely on emails. To date, they have not responded to my one email from three days ago, so I sent them another one today, along the following lines. I'll let y'all know if I get any kind of response!

Dear people,
I have been reading some online forums around your company's subscription practices. You can look at the negativity yourselves on trustpilot.com.

As I am based in Ireland, unfortunately the European Union's consumer protection legislation does not apply to your dishonest operation. However, the EU's General Data Protection Regulation DOES apply to US companies.
"The applicability of the GDPR to a non-EU organization is determined by the so-called ‘targeting’ criterion, which stipulates the processing of personal data of data subjects in the EU, when the processing activities are related to the following:

offering them goods or services (may be free of charge), or
monitoring their behaviour within the EU"

As a result of your robbery of me, I hereby formally request that you provide me with, according to the stipulations of the GDPR any and all date you, and/or any of your partners with whom you have shared my data. According to the legislation, you have six weeks to provide such to me. If you do not do so, I will contact the Irish Data Protection Commission which will demand the US National Data Protection Authority and/or the FCC to oblige you to do so.

Failure to do so will eventuate in penalties affecting your ability to target EU citizens online.

Further, as you know, in your own country scrutiny is taking place over the renewal of subs. The recent Californian law empowering citizens to prevent thieves such as you will soon become federal.

You would want to change your aggressive practices, or your business WILL suffer.

That you are a part of Ancestry is so strange. It is, while expensive, generally a reliable company.

I will be posting on a number of blogs and fora about you. I have ordered my bank to block reject any future attempts by Anc Newspapers to go near my account.

And I demand that you refund me the money that you have taken to date back to me: after all, your system still considers me as a 'registered guest', with ZERO access to any of your paid-for content.

So, why have you been taking my money without even bothering to at least upgrade my account?

That's your problem - refund all of the money or I will launch a 'fraudulent transactions' procedure against you with my bank.

My bank, Allied Irish Banks, will then put the name of your company on a 'blakc list', a list in which they regularly advise their customes about dodgy online operations.

I look forward to your PROMPT reply,

David Mahon

I can't access anything on newspaper.com. Ancestry users are you aware, if you die, your tree is dissolved and the only way to save your family information is to make a will, place your family tree's name, you're PASSWORD and NAME, choose the person you want to give it to and make it a legal. After 15yrs of hard work and precious family info; my tree will be obliterated, unless one of my nephew's or niece's want to take my tree. I am totally crushed! I never dreamed that a Christian company would do this, and they have never ever explained any of this to me I when started back in 2007. I am trying to make a will and give it to my niece. My cousin informed me of this policy when a relative died, that relative tree disappears. So sad and current users BE AWARE! Thousands of dollars given, just for my tree to be deleted when I die!😣

The information they have on the site is good, what is bad is the complete lack of customer service. I signed up for an account (I had had a previous account), and they where happy to take my money, but when it came to accessing the site I was told I didn't have an account, this was followed by three weeks of repeated calls and emails to them, no call was ever returned and at no point was I ever able to talk to a real person. The Emails where mostly ignored, however one got returned where they informed me that I had an email listed from a company I worked at over four years ago. They didn't bother to offer to change it to my current email or even explain how they ended up with that email, as I certainly didn't put it in. Any follow up emails asking for this simple change where also ignored. To date I have no access to their site.

Unless you buy the most expensive subscription you can't see anything. They use 'copyrighting' as the excuse, but I consistently find articles 80 years old that I can't see.

At an additional $12 a month I feel they are unreasonable.

Updated my review as they seem to have listened to my previous review. Much more UK and even Welsh newspapers on the site now and added the option to pay in pound sterling rather than dollars.
I found this site very handy, but they want to charge you extra for some newspapers. Lacks a lot on UK Papers.
The search feature is not very good. Only works good on one name.