From Dick Eastman's Onine Genealogy Newsletter:
- Genealogy Scams on the Web
The fast buck artists are still amongst us. In past years, I
frequently wrote about Halberts, claiming to be from Bath, Ohio,
although they were actually in nearby Akron. This company would
send you an advertisement for "The History Of Your Family Name" or
the "Worldwide Registry Of Your Family Name." The ads would speak
glowingly about this marvelous publication with its high quality
binding. The ads were never very specific about the contents of
these books. After spending $30 or $40, the hapless buyers
received a cheaply-produced paperback containing basic "how to get
started in genealogy" information along with extracts from
telephone books listing other people with the same family name as
the buyer.
Halberts went out of business in September 1999, blaming
"competition from the Internet" for their demise. By competition,
they meant that potential buyers of their books could find the
same information at no charge on the Internet. However, in a
unique reversal of technology, the Internet is now the breeding
ground of "Halberts wannabees."
Several online Web sites promise a lot but seem to deliver less
than what the advertising insinuates. These sites often send "spam
mail" claiming that they have genealogy databases available to
anyone willing to pay for access. After spending $40 to $60 to
access these "databases," the buyer discovers that the sites
simply link to other sites containing free databases. The free
databases can be accessed from any search engine and many
genealogy link sites at no charge. In fact, many of the free
databases have been mentioned in previous editions of this
newsletter.
In many cases the rip-off sites use HTML frames to make the
databases look as if they are a part of the original site. A
"frame" allows a Web site to display another Web site's pages
inside a page on the first site. The first site supplies the
header with their own logo, but the remainder of the page
originates elsewhere. The result looks as if it all originated on
the for-pay site. These rip-off sites are charging money to
display information that comes from someone else's noble efforts
to make genealogy information available at no charge.
The prevalent offender today seems to be
FamilyDiscovery.com. This
company owns several other Web sites as well. They don't seem to
have many satisfied customers. The genealogy message boards and
newsgroups are full of reports from people who feel they have been
ripped off by
FamilyDiscovery.com and its affiliated sites.
To read comments from many people about
FamilyDiscovery.com as
well as comments about
Genseekers.com and
Genealogy-Express.com,
go to:
http://www.imagin.net/~tracers/familydiscovery.htm and
http://www.gensuck.com/FEATURES/familydiscovery/index.html and
http://hometown.aol.com/vikkigray/parkcensus.htm and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/badbusiness
If you feel that you have been ripped off by this or any other
U.S.-based company on the World Wide Web, you should file a
complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. That's easy to
do at the FTC's Web site, at:
https://rn.ftc.gov/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01