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Archiver > DENEWCAS > 1998-10 > 0908056969


From: "Dora Smith" <>
Subject: geocities geoplus subscription problems
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 15:02:49 PDT


This isn't strictly genealogical, but I would appreciate any light any
of you including the list leader whose name and e-mail I don't have who
have large genealogical sites at geocities might be able to shed.

Some of you, like Gloria and Amber, have large sites at geocities. I
don't know if either of you have geoplus. I need some help and the
benefit of others' experiences. My brother tried to subscribe me to
geoplus. (That is geocities pay-for-service program where you get 25 mB
of space instead of ll that you get for free. I have a second free site
somewhere else, but I'm not satisfied with the HTML they support or with
their (nonexistent) support services.) My brother told me the secure
server or whatever you call it for entering credit card information is
down, and it appears to be down at geocities. I gather that he did not
encounter this problem when he recently subscribed to geoplus himself
(because he did not want to have no control over carrying others'
advertising, and he wanted his own url).

I tried to contact geocities through the routes I can find for
contacting geocities. I wrote to Gennut, a community leader (volunteer
consultant) and leader of geocities' genealogy club; she hasn't
responded; maybe something has her tied up. I posted on geocities' help
chat. Noone answered my query or anyone elses'. I went to help forum.
There are posted over a dozen problems, some over a month old, that
people are having with subscriptions and payments to geoplus, and the
only responses are from two other geocities members. GEocities has not
responded to any of them. These problems include, the credit card
subscription mechanism has not been working for two months (Over all, I
get the impression it is at best unreliable or that some people aren't
insisting on the secure whatsit for entering their credit card
information as my brother is), people are sending payments to geocities
by check and money order that are not getting credited, geoplus tells
them only that they didn't get the payment, geoplus made no effort to
investigate or resolve the matter, and meanwhile their files disappeared
(I will in the future be paying for geoplus by check or money order),
geoplus' e-mail address at doesn't work, peoples'
e-mail to them consistently bounces, when people get geoplus their sites
disappear, which accourding to geoplus FAQs is not supposed to happen,
but according to others' postings happens anyhow especially if people
get the personal urls, geocities' response to people whose sites
disappear is that the site didn't disappear, they just aren't able to
access it; end of the matter (they don't get the required help or
ability to access their site), people are getting personal url's who
didn't sign up for them when they subscribed to geoplus AND losing
access to their sites. This is quite a bag of problems, and what most
worries me is Geocities' non-response to those postings. In addition to
being too disorganized to process or find payments, don't they care if
anyone wants to or even is able to subscribe to Geoplus?

I tried to write to the community leader for my neighborhood (block of
addresses at geocities). I wrote to the person listed as my community
leader. My e-mail bounced; she is no longer at that geocities address.
Geocities doesn't keep that page up to date! So I went into the general
list of community leaders for my section of geocities (Heartland), and
wrote to one of the more intelligent sounding near me; a 40-year old
woman who goes by the handle Su-sue who says she likes to solve
problems. I described my entire concerns to her just as I am here. I
also specifically asked her how does one actually communicate with
Geocities and how does one inform them of problems. Her response was she
passed my letter on to the "techs" at geocities who should be able to
clear up my problems, let her know if I don't hear from them by the
middle of next week!

I also posted at a general geocities communication form. But I dont know
what to expect to come of that, and as of today, noone has responded. I
then found a communication form for problems with geoplus! I completed
and submitted it, and got a message saying that my message was submitted
but the transfer page or something was not found, which sounds as though
geoplus's form submission mechanism no more works than their e-mail
address does.

I'm already not too impressed with Geocities record of fixing "bugs" in
its system; for instance, they put in a system where if you put a
"geoguide" that puts a banner with certain convenient features as well
as an advertisement on your pages (carrying their ads is the price you
pay for free web space), you don't get that annoying pop-up ad each time
you click to a new page at someone's site that you must close to click
the back-button. I have geoguides on all of my pages, and I usually
still get the pop-up ad on my pages! GEocities acknowledged months ago
that this is due to a bug in their system. It is a minor thing, but it
should have taken only a few days to fix this bug in their system! If
they can't get someone in to fix a programming bug in that space of
time, do they even care?

What has been other peoples' experience? And does anyone have any
further advice?

Yours,
Dora Smith

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