General Chat

My membership is due renewing on 14th April. I have just received this email from Genes.


We hope that you're enjoying being part of Genes Reunited. Your subscription is due for renewal very soon.

We really hope that you continue your family history search with us.


No mention of what my renewal fee will be. :-S

Typical

:-P

I'm guessing you're NOT on automatic renewal?

Ann. It will be between £7.96 and infinity, if that helps. If you live in Cyprus, infinity plus 9.95% ;-) Glos only has small surcharge :-D

Do they take the money out of your account? If so, I think they have to give you notice of exact amount by law.

They roll a dice or something .... I had a moan last year about all the problems and got a month's extension which rolled into another one and so on. Eventually I got a renewal notice which I ignored ( too expensive ). And a while after that another one at an attractive rate so I took it up.

Make sure that auto renew in your account details is set to OFF. After renewal it will go back to ON.

The basic membership is good value 'cos the census indexes are much better ( and faster ) than other sites and the boards are fairly good. I have found the tree sharing very useful even if the new tree software is a real pain to use. I preferred the old quick n ez version.

I have a feeling ( no proof ) that people who post regularly get a better deal. Just a feeling.

Your mileage may vary.

I have auto renew and I don't mind that as I will renew anyway, just thought it strange that no amount was mentioned. I shall be contacting them.

Mine has just been (auto) renewed, Ann, and was £7.96 so I expect yours will be the same. Can't remember if they mentioned the price beforehand. XX

Go to top of the screen it should now have the option to subscribe...click on that and it should tell you what it will be.....I had two different prices in the course of a week, but thats another story

My oh was on auto renewal, as I am,
mine is 7:95(or thereabouts) hers has gone to £15.....so they lose 1 subscription..........her decision........

Who is your Oh on here Bob....if you don't mind me asking :-)

Well I had a reply from Alex

The exact price will depend on the subscription package you have. You might want to take your family history search further by upgrading your subscription, or buy credits to do specific searches. We’ll give you a clear breakdown of the cost of each option.

Keep an eye on your homepage – you’ll also see the renewal link there shortly before your subscription expires. When you click on this, you’ll get information about your renewal options and the prices.

If you need any more support, please get back in touch and we’ll do our best to help


Are you telling me they don't know what my fee will be? I am sure we should not have to search out the amount by checking our home page.

I may be wrong but I think, that Genes Reunited no longer has it's own separate accounts department "economies of scale" at work maybe, and that all the subscriptions & billing are probably being dealt with by an sort of group accounts department operated by Brightsolid personnel, this might explain a lot of the confusion around the different subscription levels we have seen over recent months ;-)

If that´s the case. It´s not acceptable.
Makes subscriptions a lottery, whereas rates should be quite clearly stated for each package, plus the duration of the membership & what´s included for your money.

My reasoning on my post is simple, all organisations are cutting their overheads by using economies of scale.

Brightsolid has numerous subsidiaries all operating on a similar basis, Genes Reunited; Friends Reunited; and Find My Past, to name just three. So just taking these three, and just taking one department such as the accounts department, by using an economies of scale approach, you substantially reduce your costs by just having one accounts department.

If I am correct, I think we will see a lot more changes in the near future.

I sent this email to GR today

jax chan member number 7471310
My six month standard subscription expired on the 22nd Feb and up until that date and a few days following, I was advised that if I renewed it would be the £1.33 a month (£7.98) On the 26th Feb I was given a free month for posting on the WDYTYA board and now if I want to renew the price has gone up to a special offer of £2 a month (£12) If I want to subscribe for a year there is no offer so I would pay £20 the same as any new member, so why would I want to pay more than a new member just to help them??

This was the reply I got



































Dear Jax

Thanks for your email.

I am sorry to hear you are unhappy with the price changes. Whilst we have increased the cost of our Standard subscription, there has been a significant decrease in the cost of our 6 month Platinum subscription by £15.00. You can also buy an annual subscription now. So, a standard subcription for one year costs just £19.95.

We do feel that our standard subscription still offers very good value for money. You now get unlimited access to our non-indexed birth, marriage and death records. We also plan to add more features to the standard subscription over the coming months.

I will pass your comments on to the Genes team though.

Think I will give up now :-(

Bit cheeky extending your membership, then expecting you to pay more :-0 :-0
Well, more than a bit actually.
I can understand the different departments pooling their resources, but surely they need to know exactly what they are dealing with as far as payments are concerned.

Do not know why I have all that white space :-S

My reply to them



































Did you not read my email?

My sub expired on the 22nd Feb with a price of £1.33 a month and as far as I was aware I have one month to renew at that price??....three days later you give me a free month whilst being a free member which I did not ask for and now tell me its £2 a month.

Of course I am unhappy with the price increase and have no intention of renewing now and I do not want platinum as I already have world wide ancestry and Full Find my past.

I think this comment at the end of the reply Jax received confirms what I said about Genes Reunited no longer having their own accounts department:-

"I will pass your comments on to the Genes team though."

I wonder what will be next, maybe a new tree common to all their subsidiaries ;-)