General Chat

Well I suppose they could always make everyone pay the £15 for six months and have no long service discounts at all

GR have responded very promptly, so full marks for that, but they are determined to charge me £9.96 I think they said, for 6 months. Membership seems to have gone up to around £14. I have replied I think it is very unfair to have two different rates and won't be paying double what other people are paying, for the same service.

It's not a case of how cheap it is, it's a blooming cheek that they think it's ok to charge some people double.

Yes SRS.
That´s exactly my point.
I was advised 3 weeks earlier that my membership would shortly expire, but there is no way to change card details at that point, even if you know the old card is invalid.
Genes just advises not to worry, they will let you know if the details they have are out of date.
Then when the old card is rejected, they give you less than 24 hours to give them the new details before they cancel your membership.
Admittedly it is re instated if you renew within a certain length of time, but in the meantime, all you can do is read posts & maintain your tree,

See my thread of Jan 9th on the Suggestions board.
What a palaver for what should be a simple operation.

I don't think there's anything to stop people renewing with their new card before their membership actually expires. I think it warns you that membership is due for renewal shortly before it expires.

Also dont forget about cashback sites such as Quidco etc which may give you a discount. :-D

I agree with you there wisechild as I had the same problem last year with a card I wanted to change due to the card being stopped and a new one issued. As I am on everyday anyway it was not a problem, but could have changed the details as I did with A****try to save messing around later on.

Ok so you dont think £9.95 a year is "cheap"??? I agree I pay £9.95 for six months....Why I dont know?

I do not need help from the boards (although every now and again I may throw one in)

I only have a basic tree and do not want any contact with other family members

Not bothered about chatting to friends, there are other free places I can do that

So I am just paying my money to try and help others, which is now few and far between.

But even for 5p a day I am not going to gumble

Think you´ll be joining the club Bob unless you can persuade Genes to accept your new card details before the event.
Don´t hold your breath.

Hmmm!

Vairy inter-resting!!
as a "standard"member........on automatic renewal....
will see what happens next month when mine falls due,,,,,,,,got a new card last august......

Bob

My point is Jax that there was no need for my sub to have been lapsed had there been the facility available to advise Genes of my new card details before the event.
Also, I don´t get "cheap" membership. I have been a member continuously for 5 years which is why I still pay 9.95 for 12 months & not 6.
It would seem that contacting Genes directly is either futile or impossible.
To be fair, I did get a 20% loyalty discount last year, so wasn´t really expecting another one.

My sub was renewed on 12th Jan automatically but I had to pay £9 something. Would have been nice to get the discount mentioned.
Why is it that some get it and others don't, I wonder. Maybe GR could answer this question.
I tried to contact them but it said I WAS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER for some reason or other. Sounds a lot of cr*p to me.

I cannot see the problem wisechild

As soon as your sub expires you become a free member and when you renew within the time allowed you are upgraded to standard.

If you paid £9.95 for 12 months you got it at the cheap rate.

Yes Jax. I recieved an e mail within a couple of minutes telling me I had been "Upgraded".......presumably from free member to standard member at 9.95 for 12 months (whatever that may be in Euros.No mention of a discount.
I´m now able to post again, but I´m still absolutely furious.

Thanks Barry. All appears to be restored, but a little breathing space would have been appreciated. How do Genes know that I am available to jump at their command. They´re not so quick at responding to their members.

So were you charged the full price wisechild?

I´m absolutely bl***y fuming.
Back at the beginning of the month, had an E mail from Genes to say my sub was due for renewal on the 20th.
I knew my card had changed since last year, but there´s no provision for giving new card details.
Yesterday got an e mail to say my renewal had failed because my card was no longer valid. Didn´t get round to entering the new details yesterday.
Logged in this morning to find I had been downgraded to a free member, which means that Genes had given me less than 24 hours to respond to their e mail.
I have been a standard member for around 5 years & am thoroughly disgusted. If it was not for their poor organisation, they could have had my new card details 3 weeks ago & saved everyone all the trouble. After all, not everyone checks their e mails on a daily basis.
Unacceptable customer care on the part of Genes.

I have been a member since 2004, NEVER been on the continuous / auto renewal system,& I am still paying £9-95 per year for 12 months membership.
Last year,about 1 month before my membership was due to end I was offered 20% off on renewal which I accepted.
Like Sylvia, I just make sure that my renewal was / is always done within the time limit allowed,if you renew after the time limit then a previous 12 month membership status becomes a 6mth membership!
Ticking the coninuous box has nothing to do with what membership level you are on or how much you pay,it only allows GR to renew your membership automatically,taking another years money from your bank account using the same card details as was previously used.

Joan.

Hi Helen,

Did you query this with GR at the time? If it didn't lapse, they may be able to do something about it.

Good luck!

I don't know, Sylvia, as it happens GR haven't given me an exact date yet, only a discount offer. They haven't offered me a discount before. But, two or three years back, my subscription changed from £9.95 for a year to £9.95 for 6 months. There have been many threads on similar subjects previously.

Helen


I'm not sure what you mean by saying that you pay more because you don't pay automatically


I NEVER have paid automatically .................. I'm never sure which card I will be using, or whether I will even have the same card as last year.

So, I've always made sure that my membership is showing as Single and not as Continuous ......... and I've done that since 2004.


I thus get an email telling me my sub is due, and I make sure I pay before the due date ..... although you do have a 4 week grace period in which to pay after the due date, without it affecting your membership


The sub I pay is the same as I was paying in 2007 ................£9.25, although I was offered a 20% discount last year, and the year before.


I have been assured by GR that this same system will still operate this year, despite the apparent confusion that was showing when I tried to change to Single Membership before Christmas.


Are you sure that you didn't delay paying one year to beyond the 4 week grace period?




sylvia

Good luck with your search Helen wherever it may be.

Don't give up either. Sometimes you think you're at a dead end and suddenly you find a connection. More and more records are coming online which may help :-D

SRS, thanks for your reply, although I'm not sure I really understand what you mean.

I used to pay the cheaper rate because my membership was renewed automatically. One year I was dithering about paying and I was cross that I was automatically renewed without being asked so I changed my style of membership so that they couldn't take my money again without asking me first. Fast forward through several new owners and my membership cost has been doubled.

I absolutely object to paying double what other people do, no matter how cheap £1.67 a month may be. Why should I pay double?? If I don't pay my phone bill by direct debit I only have to pay 5 - 10% more (which I also object to) so why should I pay 100% more to GR?

The long and the short of it is it's not good enough. I can get heaps more from Ancestry - and before you ask I haven't renewed yet with them either.
If we all agree to pay because £1.67 isn't much money, why can't we pay 83p like everyone else?

I will be speaking to them but I fear it's a losing battle on their part: in 1983 I had family to find and I had lots of helpers. I really needed them. There was nobody else and I am grateful, you know who you are. Now I am stuck and don't use any helpers. I take part in a couple of groups and that's all. I belong to several other free websites where I can chat and ask for assistance. The very fact this quetion has arisen proves how the present owners of GR do not have their finger on the pulse.

But good luck to you all the same.

I don't ever compare it to cigarettes or vodka lol

I don't necessarily think it's cheap either, there are free websites out there where i can chat to friends and where I can host my tree. I actually put off joining GR for a while all those years ago as I thought why pay £5 to join a family history site when I've been using several ones for free which were excellent at the time i.e. genforum.

The point I was trying to make is that whether its right or wrong, it's down to individuals whether they think it's worth it and only you can make that decision whether you want to renew or not.

What will probably happen, if people kick up enough fuss about the two tier system is that the older members will end up paying more if they decide to stay (the newer members probably won't get a better deal either in the long run).