Paternity Testing Reviews for Home DNA Direct

At a Glance

Editor's Rating:
4.5 out of 5 stars
Customer Service:
5 out of 5 stars
Clarity of Results:
4 out of 5 stars
References Cited:
5 out of 5 stars
Value for Money:
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

Home DNA Direct delivered the service as promised but I wasn’t happy that my test was carried out by a different company in a different country. I also felt that receiving four pages of terms and conditions in the kit was a bit daunting, especially as I was anxious to return the samples and get the results.

Full Review

The Home DNA Direct website was easy to use and reassuring compared to the others I’d researched. When choosing the 'One father-One child' paternity test I noticed an option to test the mother’s DNA as well, but I wasn’t sure why this was important.

Ordering Experience

There were no extra fees on top of the advertised price and I received the kit two working days after ordering. It came in an unmarked envelope and no one could have known what it was without opening it.

There were eight pages of documents and instructions to go through in the kit, four of which were the terms and conditions I was accepting by returning the samples. I felt the terms and conditions were quite long, that said, the instructions were easy to follow and I was able to take the samples without any problems. An addressed envelope was included to return the samples but I had to pay for postage.

Two working days after sending off the samples I received a confirmation email that they'd reached the lab, and that the results would be ready within five working days.

The Results

The results were emailed to me five working days later as a one-page PDF file (shown below).

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The full results.

The full results.

Upon opening the document it looked very confusing. There were lots of colourful badges and certifications at the top, and a large multi-coloured table which looked very complicated. There was an orange table at the bottom which said I was ‘excluded’ as the biological father, and a blue 'Statistical Results' table beneath this which said ‘Probability = 0%’ (shown below).

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The Statistical Results table.

The Statistical Results table.

It was clear that I wasn’t the biological father but I wished the result had been easier to see.

I couldn’t see a single reference to Home DNA Direct in the PDF and it showed the laboratory that had conducted the test was in New Mexico, which wasn’t what I was led to believe by the website

Summary

Home DNA Direct delivered the service as promised but I wasn’t happy that my test was carried out by a different company in a different country. I also felt that receiving four pages of terms and conditions in the kit was a bit daunting, especially as I was anxious to return the samples and get the results.

Home DNA Direct's Response

homeDNAdirect’s order pages simply provide the clients with the opportunity to order the test – all the necessary information required to decide what test to order is provided in detail on the associated web pages. However, following your feedback, we’ve realised that the reason for testing the mother’s sample was just breezed over and not given enough prominence. We have therefore added a new subheading on the paternity test page, explaining why the mother’s sample should be tested. Hopefully this will address any future clients’ questions regarding the importance of testing the mother’s sample.

Whilst we appreciate our terms and conditions were rather long, the purpose of this was to help minimise potential disputes with clients by clearly outlining policies to deal with a wide range of situations. In this way, both we and the clients are mutually protected. This said, we have also taken your feedback into consideration and revised our terms to remove excessive legal terminology and be more to the point, although still covering major issues of potential dispute.

With regards to our results, we feel it is important to provide the accreditations covering the test at the top of the page to reassure our clients of our competency. It is difficult to simplify the results without omitting important details and information about the analysis. The table is an important part of the test – without it, or anything we present on our test results, their validity could be called into question.

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