Big Problem - signing in to Ancestry free access sites

[celia]

quote from Simon
I'm will not be resubscribing...I'll be taking my custom elsewhere to FamilyRelatives.com.  I refuse to pay twice as much as I can elsewhere simply for the sake of being able to access their poor census transcriptions in addition to their poorly indexed BMD pages which aren't even complete

I have  replied to the post  stating that very thing will happen. That  some subscibers (of which i am not)will not re-subscribing,In protest  Contact them and protest,nicely

Celia

[Simon G.]

With a new change to our web site, the completed BMD records need a membership to access them. The partial BMD is still free.

They were a little less concise in their reply to me:

Ancestry.co.uk has decided to make its BMD collection available exclusively to subscribing members and Pay Per View users as acquiring, transcribing and then maintaining historical collections is enormously expensive, and we believe it is only fair that those who make a financial contribution to access and help us to maintain and add to Ancestry.co.uk’s historical collections be able to use them.

Which is fair enough, but they might like to draw attention to a change in policy before hand...by, oh I don't know, actually telling people about it.   I'd only let my subscription expire because I wasn't using any of their other records only the formerly free BMD indexes...now I certainly won't be patronising them in future.  I don't appreciate being treated as a means to profit instead of a human being.  What ever happened to treating customers like an asset?

[ludovica]

Dear Celia,

We appreciate your message.

With a new change to our web site, the completed BMD records need a membership to access them. The partial BMD is still free.

If there is anything else with which we might assist you, please let us know.

Mona
Member Solutions
Ancestry.co.uk
http://ancestryuk.custhelp.com/

 If this is the case, I think that is very bad form. Those things are incredibly time consuming to search and I imagine pay-per-view would be very unrewarding.
 How typical....
I wonder if they realise that "carrots" attract customers?

[celia]

Repy allready to the post i just sent

Dear Celia,

We appreciate your message.

The reason for the change is because Ancestry.co.uk has decided to make its BMD collection available exclusively to subscribing members and Pay Per View users as acquiring, transcribing and then maintaining historical collections is enormously expensive, and we believe it is only fair that those who make a financial contribution to access and help us to maintain and add to Ancestry.co.uk’s historical collections be able to use them. We offer many different rates and we are also offering 30 days free trial or 20% percent off an annual membership.

If there is anything else with which we might assist you, please let us know.

Mona
Member Solutions
Ancestry.co.uk
http://ancestryuk.custhelp.com/

The partial BMD is still free.

It will takes years to compleat the index though

Celia

[Simon G.]

Does Ancestry actually have someone other than Mona working in "member solutions"?  She's replied to every e-mail so far!   It explains a lot about their company if they only have one person in customer services...

[Necromancer]

Surprised that free access to the full index has lasted as long as it has ..... theres no such thing as a free lunch - except for the co-hosting of the FreeBMD d/base, which has to remain free under the conditions of its provision.

FreeBMD itself - now it has the resources - is a more flexible search engine - hopefully, transcribing will continue at the same pace.

Ancestry - like the other 'major' players - are in it for profit.

You are an asset - a revenue generating one   

One difference is the computing resources that Ancestry have compared to the others .... how many can sustain the userload and scope of searching ?

[liverpool lass]

No wonder I couldn't get anywhere yesterday! Oh well, summer hols coming up so I guess I can go to the Library and use theirs for free. I can still do that can't I?? 

[madpants]

What gets me is that the indexes are a copy of the pages of the books, it's hardly a huge amount of work transcribing them, put in the first and last name on each page and the computer sorts which one you need to see, compared to FreeBMD it's hardly a huge amount of transcribing, it's pure greed.

[ludovica]

What gets me is that the indexes are a copy of the pages of the books, it's hardly a huge amount of work transcribing them, put in the first and last name on each page and the computer sorts which one you need to see, compared to FreeBMD it's hardly a huge amount of transcribing, it's pure greed.

.... and even that has been done APPALLINGLY badly, as anyone who has used them will know