Scotlands People phone support?

[rhyum]

Does anybody know of a way to contact support at Scotlands People other than the form on their website?

I sent them a question about some broken links in downloads on Thursday (it was a side-effect of the new site), they replied saying they had changed my download settings. 

I went to log back on and now it seems my entire account has disappeared.  I know support costs money and it helps to discourage customers from contacting support, but this seems a bit drastic. :-) 

When I ask for a password reminder, it says the account has no email address, and when I ask for a userid reminder it says the email address has no userid.

So, I replied to the reply I got from support, asking if they had set anything else different while making changes to my account.  I've just found that bounced, as the reply address they set on support replies is not a valid email address.

Where do I go from here?  I've lost all access to my Scotlands People account, and the stored data, simply because I contacted support.

I have tried filling out a new support request on their site, but as there's no ticket number there's no way to refer to (or reply to) to original query.  I hope they may see that on the UK Monday (as they don't have weekend support), but if not does anybody else have any suggestions on how to reach them?  Thanks.

Rob

[andycand]

Hi

Your best bet might be to send them another message through their website detailing your problem, when I've had dealings with them the email they have sent has been from a person at the GROS and I was able to reply.

If that doesn't work you could try contacting them via the Scotlands People Centre, link below.

http://www.scotlandspeoplehub.gov.uk/

Andy

[sporran]

Hello Rob,


good suggestions from Andy.  If you still have no success after that, use the link within Help on the SP site "Contact the User Group".  This gets sent to one of the User Group (currently Jean) who will take up the issue on your behalf.

The User Group is not intended to be for 1st-level support but do use that route when other methods have failed.


Regards,

John

[rhyum]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I did already contact them again via the contact form on Sunday.  Ten minutes before they closed on Monday it seems somebody was rushing to clear out the support queue, as I just got back a form letter:

"Having checked the failed log ins, we can see that details are being entered incorrectly.

There are two reasons only why access would be denied which are :

1) Details are being entered incorrectly

2) The customers pc has cached.

Neither are site issues I am afraid - they are both local. If it was a cache issue, we would be unable to see attempted failed log ins and as we can, that would appear to be the issue."

Clearly my question wasn't even read, as I explained my account seems to have totally disappeared, after a support person made a change to it last week. I'm told there is no email address for my userid when I try a password reminer, and no userid when I try a userid reminder.

I've replied to that, which they'll hopefully see on Tuesday or Wednesday, asking for it to be escalated (I refrained from asking for it to be escalated to a human!). :-) 

(There seem to be two different help systems.  When I reported the problem with the download link last week, I think from the download page, I didn't get a ticket number and I got a reply from support[at]brightsolid.com, which bounces it you try a follow-up question.  The other help system seems to issue confirmations of receipt, and replies to the address it uses work).

So, this is a warning for others.  Your Scotlands People account can be vapourised without warning, losing all your paid for and saved records, all saved searches, and all remaining credits.  I have downloaded saved searches and many of the paid for images in the past, but not for the recent few weeks of activity. :-(

Rob

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[Forfarian]

The published telephone number of the Scotland's People Centre is 0131-314-4300, or you can ring the Registrar General on 0131-334-0380 and ask to be put through to the Scotland's People Centre. They should be able to get it sorted out.

If all else fails, you could always write an ordinary letter to the Registrar General for Scotland, General Register House, 2 Princes Street, Edinbyurgh EH1 3YT and send it by recorded delivery.

[rhyum]

Good news.  My follow-up query was finally read and my account at Scotland's People has now been reactivated.

The support person did something to trigger a password reset for me (something that was not working from the web page because it said my account didn't exist), and I can now get access again. 

First thing I'll be doing is making sure my local copy of paid-for images is fully up to date and that I've download my saved search results!  I'll also be keeping my credit balance to an absolute minimum.

Mistakes and bugs happen anywhere, it's the limited support hours (and bug in the reply address of one of their support systems) that turned what should be a quick fix into a five day saga.

Rob

[peacekeeper]

Hi,
I too have had big problems with the new site. I found that eight of my viewed images had disappeared. The record of the searches are still there but it now says 'no image'. Every one that went were Morrisons from St.Ninian's Tynet. Also when I tried to search more Morrisons at St.Ninians Tynet under other categories of the RC records all I got was a useless page of jumbled lines.
Brightsolid's replies to my many emails using their contact forms were either unanswered or were an automated response that did not cover the issue I was having. Finally after days a real human at GROS got onto me and  explained that there is a problem with all St.Ninian's Tynet records , even the births that were there before are now missing. I was refunded all the credits and advised not to search that Parish again until it is fixed but of course Brightsolid don't even admit there is a problem so I have no idea how I will know if it has been fixed.
I was able to download a birth to replace one of the missing ones because the child had also been registered at Fochabers RC church so that indicates the problem is in certain batches of records.
Any searches that are not the RC ones are also working fine.
I am also having that annoying problem of being told I am logged out when I'm not but that at least can be fixed by logging in again.
It would be very handy if Brightsolid had to post a list of all records that have been found to be faulty or missing images so people don't waste money and then a notice to say when it is repaired.
 All the best Ann