Genealogy Chat

Is anyone else having problems with the Family Rellies site? I have got the same problem again that I had when the site first went live - it times out as soon as I try to search. After I had logged in a few times it now won't let me do it any more.

Yes - exactly the same with me last week.

Did you manage to solve it, Julie? Last time I contacted them several times and ended up having to change my password. This time it seems to think that I don't know my own e-mail address.

No I just left it - as everytime I tried to log in it went back to log in page again. Even when I tried the contact tab too.

I managed to contact them, but will have to wait and see if I get a reply. Last time it took several goes before they got back to me. It is very frustrating because we want to use up our credits!!

I have had a reply to my contact. What I got was several pages of 'computer speak' which went straight over the top of my head - no new password, no instructions for getting back into the site. When will these people realise that we are users, not software engineers? Although it is a useful site, I won't be bothering again.

It is such a pity that they cant seem to sort out their own technical problems - they always blame it on the user I find. After dozens of complaints to them, it works perfectly for me now (touch wood) and is a real asset. It would be even better with the 1837-66 transcribed.

Morning, Heather and Barbara. I agree with you - it is a very useful site and I wish I was able to use it, but I am neither qualified to nor willing to make complicated alterations to my computer. We have had so many problems over the past few months involving 'rogue dialling' and big phone bills with numbers we have never called, that we ended up having to buy a new machine and start again. There is no way that I am going to mess around with the security software on it.

Angela, my sister has just had a phone bill with over £60 worth of international calls she never made. BT have insisted she has to pay for these and on top of that pay £4 a month to stop anyone making international calls from her number. As she is a widow and has no children, I cant see how on earth they think she would be making these calls. Did you get anything sorted out with them? Ive told her to contact Trading Standards. BT said they will 'investigate' but she still has to pay up. How does someone actually get into your puter to do these things? She never buys anything on line just used the email facility.

Hi Heather - Our bill was over £300!! There are only two of us in the house and neither of us had made the calls. My husband paid the bill for the calls which we knew were ours but refused to pay the rest. After a lot of correspondence with BT they cut us off!!! To get the phone reconnected we had to pay the lot. There is no way we are going to be caught like that again. We have now gone onto Broadband which should solve the problem. That is the main reason why I am not willing to mess around with the security software.

I thought insult to injury was telling my sister she should pay up to have international calls blocked - I mean thats saying someone (there is no one, unless the dog has learned German) in her house has defrauded her!

We have contacted the 'watchdog' organisations who were sympathetic but couldn't stop us from being cut off. The best we can hope for is eventually getting a refund, but I am not holding my breath. Maybe I just have very very clever goldfish and they made the calls!

Now you can see why I am not bothering with Family Rellies again!!! If they think that I am going to follow their complicated instructions and mess around downloading things and altering the system, then they can think again. I use two different computers in two different places, and can't get into it from either. I will just concede defeat, pay my train fair up to the FRC and look the information up for myself. I would say that it safer that way, but when I was there last Friday there was a bomb scare and we all got evacuated from the building for a couple of hours. Perhaps I am just accident prone!!

Id be more suspicious if it was a Dauschund!

The instructions sounded much more complicated than that, and involved altering loads of settings that I didn't really understand. Knowing the problems that we have had, I just don't think it is worth bothering with if the site is that complicated and temperamental. I don't have any problem with any other pay-to-view sites.