Misleading search results for non-members entice you to sign up and subscribe

Genealogy is big business. But it’s hard to find some types of records, especially military service records. So imagine my delight when forces-war-records.co.uk came up on a couple of Google searches I was doing for my genealogical research. This site tantalises you with a seemingly relevant search result and then refuses to show you any information which might verify whether it’s actually relevant until you’ve paid for a subscription.

Just to make it clear what the site shows you: whatever you search for, you get something that looks like it’s a scan of a real paper record with most of the content replaced with “Full Access Member Only”. What you won’t realise unless you perform a few searches is that it’s a strikingly similar image that’s shown regardless of the search, and it’s not a scan of a real record at all. Any details that might help you discern whether it’s a genuine match for your search subject are conveniently not there. That is, they’re not there until you sign up and subscribe.

So… I paid the £7.49 they were asking for a month’s access and, surprise surprise, the records they were alluding to were nothing to do with my research targets. I tried a few searches for some minor divisions of the army during WW2, which yielded nothing at all. I complained immediately and asked for a refund, but just received blocking tactics in reply. So… best advice is, don’t bother with forces-war-records.co.uk. Instead apply to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) at https://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/WhatWeDo/Personnel/ServiceRecords/.

Just to make it clear, I completely get the point about “once you’ve given someone information, you can’t take it back”. It’s just that when you design search results in such a way as to convince someone you’ve actually got a real record, along with lots of convincing sales spiel intimating that whatever you want you’ll find it here… well, that’s going to make customers feel pretty sore when they find that the search results don’t lead to what they expected.

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04 July 2012 16:02:43 by jon
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I didn’’t need 4.5 million records, I needed one or two which you don’’t have, but I couldn’’t find this out until I’’d paid you money. Your payment processor will have to refund me. Thanks for being thieving self-serving swindling cheats.
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04 July 2012 15:43:47 by Support
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Can you let us know where we didn”t supply any service to you?
We gave you 4.5 million records access for the subscribed period: we have supplied the service you paid for.
Regards,
Forces Reunited Support
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Did your customer service agent answer your query in a polite and friendly manner? If not please let us know by sending an email to [email protected].
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04 July 2012 15:43:10 by Support
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Can you let us know where we didn”t supply any service to you?
We gave you 4.5 million records access for the subscribed period: we have supplied the service you paid for.
Regards,
Forces Reunited Support
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Did your customer service agent answer your query in a polite and friendly manner? If not please let us know by sending an email to [email protected].
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04 July 2012 15:20:29 by jon
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Before subscribing I searched for “****** Silver”. Your site showed the merest stub of a record, but I had to subscribe to find out that it was nothing to do with my Father who was in the Army in WW2. In addition you apparently have nothing for, for example, the Army Kinematograph Service.

It’’s OK, I’’ll just complain to my bank & your payment processing company if you can’’t help me.
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04 July 2012 15:16:16 by Support
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Hello, I”m sorry you”ve experienced any problems using our site.
I understand you have asked for a refund: in order for us to consider a refund please state exactly where on our pages we have stated we can provide the information that you have now found we do not have.

We do need to know the exact wording and the page where this is stated, as we can”t consider assumptions.

We”ll then investigate promptly and you”ll receive an apology a refund and we”ll ensure that the error doesn”t happen again.

It is worth noting the following however:

a) Our searches are Free, you are never asked to make any form of payment unless you attempt to open a link to one of the results from your search and view the documents that we have provided in our service to you.

b) You may contact us or ask a question in our forums or read helpful tutorials without being asked for payment.

c) What we do offer for payment is the opportunity to look further into records already searched for, the moment you pay, we give you every record we have on that date (in excess of 4 million as of March 2012) and without any limit as to how many records you can view or how far you can see into each record.
Other sites offer differing levels and credits systems for in depth research often at the same time.
However your membership with us is very simple: we give you everything we have for everyone we have instantly.

d) We make it clear on our advertising and on our front page we have ”x” million records, we make no guarantees to have every record or even specific records, this is why the free basic search is there: it allows you to ascertain for yourself – and then, if you are still unclear our free helpdesk etc will assist.

e) Under the ecommerce (UK Distance Selling) Regulations 2000, the purchase of immediately available online services, there is no ”cooling off” period, as services are provided in full upon payment.

We do not offer a ”find guarantee” or ”a free refund if unsuccessful” type of service, and to be fair, no other similar company does so either.

 

Regards,
Forces Reunited Support

Regards,
Forces Reunited Support
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Did your customer service agent answer your query in a polite and friendly manner? If not please let us know by sending an email to [email protected].
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04 July 2012 13:51:46 by jon
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Having been shown absolutely nothing to verify that search results were relevant to my enquiries before subscribing, after subscribing I found that you have nothing of any interest to my research in your records. I therefore request a refund in full and you may entirely cancel my membership. I think you should stop trying to con people.