HELP with Partner Site MyHeritage

LegacyUser

P Walker said: Trying everywhere I can to get help. Have tried for 3 months to contact support@myheritage.com and phone calls--they claim they never received the support email (although automatic acknowledgement came through) about the following issue:

For past 13 years on 12 Premium sites I have (created before LDS Partner access) I had Message Forums with a lot of data--members posting questions, ideas, websites, documents, photos. ALL of a sudden sometime last November, MyHeritage REMOVED EVERYTHING (did not save it or warn me to give me a chance to save the data to my hard drive. 13 years of data--GONE!

Also they have selectively changed the Welcome page--did they do this only for LDS members? I will post another site with the old format and all of my sites --format on the right. It's very difficult to read and my site members are not happy.

But the major problem is abrupt removal of data from all 12 of my premium sites without warning. Consider this really serious and did report to FamilySearch but realize they are not responsible for these Partner Sites. I just want the data back or some type of explanation--one email only that does not address the loss but only attributes it to the new Welcome page format--which is only being applied to "certain" Premium members!

Where can I go next? Thinking of finding someone at RootsTech 2020 to help with this?

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: I am a non-Latter Day Saint MyHeritage subscriber.

The forums that were under "help" were indeed removed sometime last year. I sometimes contributed to these forums by helping customers with DNA queries. They were scarcely used (at least in the past few years), but some notice before their deletion would have been polite.

I too have had the homepage of my website changed to the new format.

MyHeritage is certainly well known for poor customer communication, with queries by email and on the forum routinely going unanswered. If you're a subscriber you're supposed to receive "priority" service, but even so I've had several questions to MyHeritage go unanswered or take weeks to receive an answer.

Ultimately this is all MyHeritage's responsibility and FS can directly do nothing, except to try and influence them through their partnership. The only part of MyHeritage that involves FamilySearch is the LDS-only sync service between the FamilySearch FamilyTree and MyHeritage sites, which is jointly operated by the two organisations.

LegacyUser

P Walker said: Thank you very much. As I examined my sites more thoroughly--I found one of the first sites that were grandfathered in when LDS membership allowed free premium sites. I see that they have, in fact, taken money from a site member for continuation of the site as Premium, although there was no need to as LDS do not pay yearly fees. I will have to look further into these "partnerships" as I have no trust whatsoever in MyHeritage and the many members who trusted them (and me as site creator and manager) with the information they posted is completely gone.

The forums were not used as they took the access off the Welcome page so that finding them was not evident for new members.

I would say that if I took this to the Attorney General in our state, that this is borderline fraud on many levels.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: Here is the relevant part of the MyHeritage Terms of Use:

"Other Areas of the Website

As a Member, you are allowed to post content to other areas of the Website, such as the support forum. You may also post comments on content submitted by other users. We reserve the right to remove any content or posting which we believe, in our sole discretion, is in breach of this Agreement in any way, with or without prior notice, and without any liability, financial or otherwise"

Possibly they have breached the Terms as much of the content was not "in breach of this Agreement". But then the agreement does give them "sole discretion" on this matter, meaning their judgement probably cannot be challenged, not even by a court.

Certainly their removal of the forums was a bad business decision, but it's not fraud and perhaps not illegal at all. Your Attorney General has better things to do.

It's possible however that some pages on the forum were saved at The Internet Archive https://web.archive.org/ But because the forums were scarcely used, the chance they were archived is low, and in any case you would need to know the exact URL of the threads you wished to review.

LegacyUser

P Walker said: Thank you for further explanation of the "other areas of the Website" and unfortunately, you are probably right about the "sole discretion" but why no response to the site members or manager or anyone. Why would I then trust them anymore with ANY of the other data I posted--out of good faith? Legal or illegal, it's the principle of it and probably AG does have better things to do, but this is the Holocaust all over again---destruction and removel of people's life information in the form of the forum--in various ways. It would be nice of the WayBack machine had this information. I only have what I happened to save to OneNote a few years ago...but again--13 years of postings, etc for 11 sites!

I would like to do what I can to save anyone else the heartache of such a loss. And why the discrimination on what sites still get the OLD Welcome page vs those of us with the NEW One?

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: "but this is the Holocaust all over again"

Really?

And the forums have nothing to do with your 11 sites and the site managers, unless you were using them to store genealogical information which is not what they were intended for.

I strongly suggest trying again to email MyHeritage again. FS can't do anything and we are drifting off-topic for this forum. Emphasis the previous attempts (mentioning case numbers) you have made to contact them and your status as a premium user for many years with 11 sites. MyHeritage has on several occasions ignored my questions to Customer Support, but they've never ignored my second attempt to ask the same question.

LegacyUser

P Walker said: The Message forums inside MyHeritage (that were removed) had a great deal of genealogical information--on all the sites--but I may be misunderstanding. In any case, I do have the case numbers and all the attempts to get answers after no replies. I will try your idea of generating a new case on the same issue.

LegacyUser

FamilySearch Moderator said: I'm sorry you are having difficulties with the partner site. But you will have to resolve the issue with them.