General Chat

This time last year we were discovering that we were all being charged different prices and in spite of debates with GR who said that they were bringing all members into line - there appeared to be no consistency in the application.

I have been in continuous standard membership since 2003 and early this year my renewal was suddenly circa £15.

Has anybody who has renewed in past 2-3 months been charged at the lower rate?

is that £15 per annum?

yes - just checked notice - £15.96.

Hi - I renewed in October and was charged £7.96 for a 12 month standard membership!

I only paid £7.96 GBP for a 12 month Standard membership. on Sept 13th. It just came through like that

Anyone been charged the higher price?

Have to leave pc for a while but will be back later in evening.

I renew 6 monthly ; Gru charges £ 7.50. I got one 6 month free when I made a very strong moan about the nonsense at the end of 2012.

The recent basic increase in my phone contract was £ 60 p.a. so I don't think GRu are gilding the lily with their subs far from it. The various moans that £ 1.25/month subs are "unaffordable" and so the poor member is "forced to leave" on account of the high basic sub. doesn't really hold much water.

As Madame van Butterfingers is tasked with elimiating a D C Thomson loss on family history of £ 2 million last year and achieving a useful profit I fear that there are going to be some changes.

What is left of FriendsUnited is being sold off.

From a business perspective only the obvious thing is to write off the GRu software and migrate as many people as poss. to FMP - esp the Platinum members. The rest could be dumped in FB like it or lump it. Aaaaagh they say never ... well there are always the GRu renegade sitez. The utter lack of fiddling during the last year and ongoing lack of an "app" presages trouble brewing.

So enjoy this little online corner of hobbitshire while you may.

If I was to vote for one single change it would to be to somehow revert the tree to how it used to be - quick, simple and fast. Even with a 100Mb connection and top end i7 computer it is like wading through treacle, time consuming and clumsy.

Some moan it needs a bigger screen than the 1024x768 and lo-res notebook screens which still seem to be in widespread use. Well, at least it is possible to get a 1600x1200 or 1440x900 screen quite easily off eBay for £ 20.

I also feel sorry for the platinum members and the poor integration of the tree and paid for records.

happy new year

All that rubbish GR gave us that everyone would be paying the same was not true.

I ended up paying £19.95 for the year, because as I saw it I would be paying that anyway with 6 months at £7.96 then the following 6 months at £12 (I had already had a taste of this when they messed up my account)

It is very doubtful I will renew next time though

Just to explain - my sub run out in feb and they asked for £7.96 for 6 months....day before it run out I posted on the WDYTYA board.....few days later while being a free member (I had not renewed) they gave me a free month....but if I now wanted to renew they wanted £12 (being 20% discount on the normal £15)

After complaining that it had gone up in the course of the week, they said if I paid the £12 they would then refund me if I emailed them.....couldn't be arsed with this messing around so took out a year sub instead

KI paid £7.96 just before Christmas for the year

I think GR is coming to the end of its useful life. The tree is useless - I have so many people within the tree marrying each other - I gave up on it years ago. The boards hardly get any meaningful traffic these days either. May not renew next time, certainly won't if the sub rises in price.

Andy

Rollo

I don't think most people are complaining about it being to expensive....more like the inconsistency with what they have been charging.

I personally only use this site to help other members, my tree isn't on here and I would rather use free sites like facebook to chat with out the risk of being reported if someone doesn't like what I post.

If GR had said from Jan 2013 the annual or six month standard sub will be xyz...then I am sure most wouldn't have minded.....although of course some would not bother anymore.....

Exactly Jax - inconsistency.

I will pay £7.96 on 12th Jan for 6 months and I am quite happy with that.

Well yes it is inconsistent eg I pay £ 15 p.a. in 2 instalments others the same for a year. I think that the very cheap rates apply to people who were members a long time back - I dropped it for a while and noticed I big rise when I restarted.

Making a rough calculation on the basis of Genes web traffic ( the stats are in the public domain if you know where to look ) and the way advertising traffic revenue is calculated Genes RU would probably do a whole lot better to cancel the basic sub and make it free inc. posting and access to shared trees.

Records have never been handled well and were not part of the original product. It would make sense to drop the platinum membership altogether and move those members to FMP.

That would give D C Thompson two complementary products rather than overlapping and most likely more revenue and lower costs. Quite what they will do of course is anybody's guess. The status quo is for sure not an option.

As Annelies Van Den Belt has made her name with social web sites something like the above must be on the cards.

As I said I was asked for £7.96 for 6 months then a week later they wanted £12....when I complained they said " Sorry you are unhappy with the increase"

As everything they do is generated by a computer yes sure I was unhappy..

Why should ChrisofWessex have her annual sub increased to £15.96 when others who have been members just as long or even not as long....are still paying £7.96 or less for the year?

This is something I posted on Chris's previous post 24/12/2012....so over a year ago

jax Report Edit Delete 24 Dec 2012 15:06

Here is another reply

as Rachel has already said in her email, we are slowly moving everyone over to the same renewal price. For those of you on a standard subscription, this is £14.95 for 6 months and £19.95 for 12 months. If you renew before the renewal date then there is a 20% discount on the cost of your renewal. Elizabeth - this is why your is £15.96, as that's the annual price less a 20% discount.

As normally happens, we will email you before your renewal date to confirm the cost of it.

If you do have any further questions then please contact our customer support team.



How SLOWLY are they doing this ??

slowly, very slowly I am happy to say !

The subs. model will never ever fund the site or even come somewhere close so why charge for the basic membership ? It just irritates people and ensures that the churn rate is very high.

Rollo - if the cheap rates apply to members from way back - what has happened to me - joined December 2003 - there are others like me.

Yes you are happy but what about the ones who have had their prices increased.

According to Rachel some of us that are on a 6 monthly sub should be paying £14.95 (less 20% discount bringing it down to £12) over the year that is £24...there is no option to take up the annual sub less discount

A new member can join for £19.95......is that fair?

I was on a continuous renewal via card, but as I had changed my card number I found I had to re-subscribe from scratch - though they have my records straight, I have 5 credits somewhere! It was like Chris £15.96 for a year

edit - this time last year it was £19.95 - I've been a member since January 2005