Genealogy Chat

Be AWARE ...... ..... see below.

If you have subscribed and paid to use Name Indexes - currently available online, then please be VERY CAREFUL. The company offering the service (for which we are paying ) are MONITORING every single account. If they believe that your useage is HIGH, then they suspend your account and YOU have to proove that every name you have looked up is ON YOUR FAMILY TREE - otherwise YOU get FINED (CHARGED*) £5 for every name you can not proove as your own. One member on Genes is being threatened with a £6000 fine at the moment, having an unusually high useage. Problem is, that this member is TOTALLY INNOCENT and does NOT do lookups for others. The company expect you to send a gedcom file to them with your tree on it, so they can use your tree against the list of names that YOU have searched for .... any names that don't match are charged £5 each. It seems that the company don't need to have 'spies' ... they simple monitor your usage and keep your searches on there own database for reference. One way round this, would be to keep a seperate list of all names searched for, so if ever asked for names on your FT, then include all these along with a few of your own. Another thought to consider, NOT everyone keeps the FT on PC ... I don't, mines on paper, so I couldn't send a gedcom, they would have to accept a list of names that I say is on my tree....... This problem is NOT going to go away. Please be very careful. Elaine :-(

Elaine Can you give a clue as to which site this is? Margaret

Margaret, Have sent pm ......... don't want to give the company ANY publicity at all.

This all sounds very fishy. What is the look up service that is supposed to be provided in the first place?

How can they fine you? Simply refuse to pay, and let them try to sue you! Of course if you registered with an imaginary name and address, then they'll find it hard to do that! And unless you specifically signed something agreeing to send them your gedcom on request (which I doubt), then it would be up to them to prove that the names were NOT on your tree, not the other way around. And they would be in big trouble if they tried to debit your cc without your authorisation. It sounds like scare tactics to me - simply call their bluff. Or better still, publish the company name on here and let everyone know who to boycott. Oh and the problem will go away, very soon... ie when Ancestry finally release the 1851 & 1841. Then, this other site will simply be irrelevant! They are obviously trying to milk their over-priced and incomplete indexes for all they can whilst they are still the only online supplier of the data, but that won't be for much longer... Richard

Internet or not - I believe English law applies in England: innocent until proven guilty (unless the police think you're a terrorist, but that's another topic). Christine

This is absolutely appalling – don’t they know how family history works? That, for elimination purposes, you may well legitimately have to look up people NOT on your tree to work round a brick wall? That people make mistakes, trace the wrong family and have to go back and look again? Other people research one surname in detail and chase up every reference to it – make take years to place all these people on a tree, if ever. What if you’re doing local history & researching the inhabitants of a village over a couple of centuries? Don’t they understand that people subscribe to a site precisely in order to USE it? Is there anything family historians as a group can do about this? If everyone left, they’d soon be out of business and serve them right. And we have to pay up front and trust that THEY will have information of use to us. No refunds if they haven’t. Sorry, I feel better now I've got that off my chest.

I can't speak for other companies, but this one, you pay in advance (usually for a 12 month period) but pay on a quarterly system ... by Credit card ... which you can not stop payments for. Even if they suspend your account, I'm lead to believe that you carry on paying for the privelage. YOUR right, the problem WILL GO AWAY, once Ancestry get 41 & 51 online, but until then, this company will do what ever they can to make us suffer. They MUST know that no one will want their products for much longer. I will let anyone know the name of the company, if they ask via PM. I'm not about to give the company publicity ! Elaine :-)

Which site is it?

'you pay in advance (usually for a 12 month period) but pay on a quarterly system ... by Credit card ... which you can not stop payments for. Even if they suspend your account, I'm lead to believe that you carry on paying for the privelage.' One phone call to your credit card issuer and they will be blocked.

Name and Shame, Elaine! I don't think that this is the sort of publicity they want, though doubtless it's what they deserve. Regarding credit cards, why not simply cancel your card and get it re-issued with a different number? That would stop them! Oh and never give your real name and address when you sign up for these dubious websites, and always use a hot-mail email address or similar that you can change at will - no point in making it easy for them to find you, eh?

Richard, They don't come looking for you. They monitor your usage, no matter what name you use ... or e.mail address you give. Thanks for the advice about the Credit Card cancellation etc ... it may help to know this for future reference. I must stress, this is NOT me that this has happened to - although I was suspended a while ago and did warn folks at the time ... BUT, I assumed that there was a spy on the boards, watching who was doing lookups etc. This isn't the case here. The company monitor your useage on their site, and keep a record of every name you search for. If they believe you are doing too many lookups, with a variety of names etc, then they suspend your account and challenge you to proove your FT. Elaine :-) If you send pm, then I will give name.

Elaine - I didn't think that they'd physically come looking for you lol! What I meant was if they are trying to get someone to pay a fine (on top of their sub) then they'd have to find out who that person was and also their physical address if they wanted to try and make them pay. If they didn't even know this, then they'd have fat chance! Not that I think they'd have any legal grounds anyway, but why make it easier for them?

if you read the terms and conditions for all family history related products, they all bar you doing look ups, even Ancestry, people who do them from any site are breaking the terms and conditions and could be barred, seems Ancetry dose not moniter there site yet, if you read the small print it says for personel research only, it must be so easy to spot people doing look ups, when they have several hundred different names that even stretching the mistranscription bit are obviously not related.

Hi Gary, I agree with what your saying. When I first got 'nobbled' I was actually transcribing for this company, and by way of 'paymernt' they gave me free access to the same name index that I was transcribing ... for life. However, I had NOT read the terms and agreements and admitted this ! ... learnt my lesson and have not done any lookups since.... However, not everyone does read the terms and agreements ! I have over 2000 people in my tree, and I can only assume that I must have at least 800 different surnames to research. I can't account for every name that I do lookup ... some MAYBE possible's but until I've searched, I can't account for who or why I'm searching for that name. :-( The bigger the tree, the bigger the problem. As mentioned ... the person who has just been suspended IS INNOCENT ... and to start with, wasn't sure how to use the indexes and did play about with a few names to start with, I don't know the full extent of the story, but I can sympathise with this person - being threatened with a £6000+ bill. I think this particular problem stem's from the fact that she is unable to send them a gedcom file, and therefore can't proove her 'searches' ... so they are charging her for the 1,200+ lookups she has actually done ...... even if (lets say) 360 of them are for variation's of the same name. Elaine :-)

Gary you're right - but only if the person was openly offering lookups on a site such as this. However, there's nothing in their terms and conditions that say you can only search for names that are in your tree - which in any case would be ridiculous and impossible to verify one way or another. Also, there is nothing specifying a ''fine'' for looking up more names than a set quota. Therefore I think that the company would have absolutely no grounds to impose such a fine, even if the person was openly offering lookups. And if they werent, then I'd say the company has no grounds for suspending membership either - if it was me I'd take it straight to the dept of consumer affairs (or whatever the equivalent is in UK) and complain - after all, by suspending membership they are not providing the service that was paid for.

How can you have high usage when you are paying for credits? I got about 150 credits to last 3 months. I should imagine they'll be gone in a week because the search facility isn't great for this particular company. You can't seem to do blanket searches on surnames so when i've runout of credits I shall have to lump it. Haven't found anything so far and my ancestors should definitely be there somewhere. Louise

If this company is threatening to fine people, contact Trading Standards because I'm sure that the company cannot just 'take' £6000 from a customer. It's ridiculous that they demand a tree as 'proof'. Are they going to check it to make sure it dreamt up in an afternoon to incorporate all the surnames?

Richard maybe 'Fine is the wrong word, maybe a bit like leasing a Car, you pay say £400 a month for 20,000 miles a year, go over this and you pay x amount per mile, if you say did 40,000 a year you could easly double your payment, they may write a penalty in the terms on look up amounts and charge you extra, quite legally. same as having a book out to long or a film