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Geni.com

United States

Consumer complaints and reviews about Geni.com

mkusernm Send email
 
Aug 23, 2019

Management of Profiles

I have spent a ton of time to research my family tree. However, one day, somebody in Geni decided to remove me as a manager of the profiles I have created and place somebody else as a manger (perhaps because I was not active enough on Geni because of a family tragedy). They have done o without giving me any notice. Doing that is a violation of any ethical rule you can think of.
Christine F Send email
 
Jul 29, 2019

Privacy Policy

Geni.com needs to revise their privacy policy to inform users that they read YOUR inbox messages within their site! Omitting this important information is unethical. They monitor your messages! A company that says they take affirmative steps to protect the privacy of users and then doesn't may be illegal. Perhaps it's a data breach violoation worthy of a hefty fine with General Data Protection Regulation?

I have suggested that the company modify their privacy information by adding the capitalizes words below:
"Geni Employees have full access to all data on Geni, INCLUDING YOUR INBOX MESSAGES TO OTHER USERS. They use this access if requested by users in order to provide customer support, check abuse complaints, resolve problems and generally assist users in their usage of Geni."

What's more, the company is not A+ Rated with the Better Business Bureau but uses the logo when you sign up for the service.
Christine F Send email
 
Jul 29, 2019

Privacy Policy

Geni.com needs to revise their privacy policy to inform users that they read YOUR inbox messages within their site! Omitting this important information is unethical. They monitor your messages! A company that says they take affirmative steps to protect the privacy of users and then doesn't may be illegal. Perhaps it's a data breach violoation worthy of a hefty fine with General Data Protection Regulation?

I have suggested that the company modify their privacy information by adding the capitalizes words below:
"Geni Employees have full access to all data on Geni, INCLUDING YOUR INBOX MESSAGES TO OTHER USERS. They use this access if requested by users in order to provide customer support, check abuse complaints, resolve problems and generally assist users in their usage of Geni."

What's more, the company is not A+ Rated with the Better Business Bureau but uses the logo when you sign up for the service.
Christine F Send email
 
Jul 29, 2019

PRIVACY POLICY

Geni.com needs to revise their privacy policy to inform users that they read YOUR inbox messages within their site! Omitting this important information is unethical. They monitor your messages! A company that says they take affirmative steps to protect the privacy of users and then doesn't may be illegal. Perhaps it's a data breach violoation worthy of a hefty fine with General Data Protection Regulation?

I have suggested that the company modify their privacy information by adding the capitalizes words below:
"Geni Employees have full access to all data on Geni, INCLUDING YOUR INBOX MESSAGES TO OTHER USERS. They use this access if requested by users in order to provide customer support, check abuse complaints, resolve problems and generally assist users in their usage of Geni."

What's more, the company is not A+ Rated with the Better Business Bureau but uses the logo when you sign up for the service.
MabelWindey Send email
 
Apr 2, 2018

gemi.com

Please do not use Geni to create a family tree. THEY ARE SCAMMERS! a cousin opened an account, paid the fees and started making the family tree. After two weeks he was denied access and his account was closed. Most of the information of family members is wrong, mainly in year of birth!! I was given 8 years older! this is a huge disadvantage in any new job search as I am doing now, My sisters also got wrong ( adversely) year of birth

We have not got an answer back from Geni team.

Mabel Windey
Africanqueen South Africa Send email
 
Oct 13, 2015

Private Information Stolen on Geni

Please see below my dealings with Geni.
Thank you for your reply but my problem HAS NOT been solved as information without permission is on Geni.
This is an insult to the surviving children of my late mother and even more of an insult to my late Dad's second wife and his two children, my half siblings who were not contacted to gain permission to use private information of both parents.
At no time was any information shared. The information was taken by the "copying and pasting" and added to the page of a person who is married to my late mom's brother. She in turn distributed this information to other persons.
This is and was my reason for reporting the matter as Misconduct.
I am not an idiot. I am fully aware of how Geni works. I had no problem with Geni, I supported the concept until I realized that any person without being part of "my" family tree could simply steal information blatantly with no reprisal.
I find it reprehensible that I had to delete my account which in turn has destroyed any chance of leaving history for my children, my siblings and their children, grandchildren or generations to come, a history trail to follow all due to one person who has in simple terms been given all rights and support to disrespect the grieving family members of a combined 3 family.
I could not and would never disrespect the woman my Father spent 40 years of his life with.
Having my late Dad's information showing on a family member that has no relation whatsoever to my late Dad and his second family is disgusting and not one word in your response shows the full understanding of the trauma and disrespect I have to deal with simply as - please note that this is the CRUX of my initial complaint - someone STOLE information from my profile. They never "shared" information with me, they never contacted me, they never requested verification or any other communication. They simply "took" information and added it to their "tree".
We want it removed. We have an issue that this information is not being removed. The "person" can remain on Genie, we do not care about her/him or their family tree, we are collectively not interested in said person, but we want them to either be informed to remove the information or that Geni themselves show decency and delete it themselves.
Nothing else is or will be acceptable.
All rights are reserved to make use of whomever, however, be it via International means, Social Media, A Campaign or Media contacts to take this matter as far as necessary in order to have this information removed.
Sent for and on behalf of:
K. Poulakis and children
R. Poulakis and children
K. Gibbs and children
J. Gass
C. Poulakis
C. Antonines
E. Antonines
A. Antonines
B. Antonines
M. Antonines
R. Antonines
L. Gass
P. Gass and children
P.L. Gass and children
B. Gass
C. Marais
W. Marais
P. Marais
C. Hines
K. Hines
J. Marriseen
M. Marriseen
P. Marriseen
S. Marriseen
A.K. Poulakis
A. Poulakis
S. Wappenaar and children
M. Haartman and children





Sent from my iPad

On 13 Oct 2015, at 1:39 AM, Geni Support <[email protected]> wrote:

## Please do not write below this line ##
Geni The world's largest family tree
Ticket #73466: Misconduct report
Your request (#73466) has been deemed solved.

To comment and reopen the request you may reply to this email or if you are a Geni Pro member you may comment and reopen the request by following the link below:
http://help.geni.com/requests/73466


Geni Support Team, Oct 12, 5:39 PM:

Hi Patricia,

Thank you for contacting Geni, I apologize for delay in responding. Please know that Geni is a collaborative genealogy website where users are able to create an account, build their family tree, invite their relatives to join and work together with other Geni users to create a shared world family tree. It is possible that a distant relative may have started a tree on Geni which would appear as duplicates through Tree Matches.

Merging duplicate profiles is part of the process in working on a shared family tree, we apologize if merges you saw feels like an intrusion. Merges can be done by relatives, users who are connected to the profile and curators. As you may know, the Geni curators are a group of people who have been using the site for a long time and have been appointed by Geni management to build and improve the World Family Tree and assist users when asked. Geni Curators can be identified by a purple 'C' badge on their profile page. You can find out more about curators on the Geni Help FAQ's http://help.geni.com/forums/20501701-Curators and the Geni wiki: http://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Curators

You have already closed your Geni account and your profile has been deleted. We do respect the wishes of individuals who do not wish to be on Geni, if you have found a profile of yourself that you wish to be deleted please reply to this message with the link to the profile page so we may delete the profile. If you wish to learn more about privacy on Geni please see the following link: https://www.geni.com/company/privacy

Kind regards,

Hiromimarie

The Geni Support Team

FAQ, Community Help, Feature Requests & Bug Reports -http://help.geni.com



Patricia Liliane Quaroni née Gass, Jun 22, 12:18 AM:

Good morning

A person has updated information without permission as well as deleting me from whatever. In terms of the Privacy to Information Act no one person has the right to post private information without permission. I want this person stopped immediately.

Kindly advise what the process is.

Thank you

P Quaroni

Sent from my iPad


This email is a service from Geni Help Center.
Message-Id:1QK7WL50Q1_561c52b5939aa_61983faa090cd32870988_sprut
Lucky Send email
 
Feb 26, 2013

Donna schraub ..I am not dead!!!

Me and my brothers are all listed as deceased, probably because someone with my name died and so they picked that up,killed off me and my family. We are all shown as deceased on the same day. I can not get thru anyone to resolve this without purchasing their premium membership. I tried the trial and that will not change the posting. I am not a member. Is this a scam to make me join to take off me and my family from everyone thinking we are all dead! I will continue to file complaints with everyone I can until geni.com takes my name and my family's off this ridiculous site.
YWalk Send email
 
Jan 28, 2013

Deceit and Fraud

I joined Geni.com with a life time membership, bought and paid for which has now at Geni's sole option been cancelled, and there are a number of other Life Time members who are also upset. When I complained publicly to Geni.com my postings were removed by them and I was threatened with a libel suit (criminal offence). Although they have since refunded what I paid the legal opinions from a respectable law firm we received was quote:

" it appears that Geni.com may have engaged in some unfair, unlawful or fraudulent practices,"

In addition regular members have been taken away some of their privileges, as an example, they used to have full acess to the family data, which has now been limited to 10 times what you have input yourself.

These people are unmoral and have no clue what customer service is, most of us have worked 100's of hours on our family trees which have now been hijacked without them honouring what we contracted for. Shame on you Geni.com

O.Paadimeister
Toronto,Canada
Cherokee_Princess Send email
 
Feb 27, 2012

Do Not Add Tree Here

I don't know what they're up to? I don't know if they're going to turn into ancestry & make people pay & arm & a leg to see the work people are currently doing for free? But I don't trust the place. And here's why:<br /><br />
<br /><br />
Everything on their home & about pages are either plays on words or lies. Adding people = managing profiles & memorials. Inviting people = cleaning up a small mess every other time due to duplicates. And merging with people = a never ending unpaid job.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
They state "add family" & "between family" yet people are adding every god known to man, myths & also historical & famous people hoping to trace a connection. Lots of people are doing it & here's the thing when you merge...you don't know if you're merging with family or another religious person or fan. <br /><br />
<br /><br />
Between this & their collaboration feature privacy & security go straight out the window. Now they're trying to blind people again by making the collaboration a free for all. But that still don't make it a good feature. Plus it still don't do a thing for privacy & security...it just means they're not charging people to have access to your personal info anymore.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
I've went to them after a few merges & said I don't like the big tree & want out. They can't/won't get you out. So your options are donating profiles (living people) & memorials (deceased people) to their community (an absolute & total end for privacy & security) or you can delete things you manage.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
Now here's another thing that makes one wonder about Geni. Anywhere else you can delete your whole tree with one click of a button. But not here. Here you have to delete 'em one person @ a time. And if they've even been here & visited you can't delete them. And if you can't delete them you can't delete some of the people connected to them.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
Here's what finally let me know Geni was up to no good. One person was too busy @ Facebook playing with their application...well he missed all my family forum postings & PMs so when I moved & deleted his stuff he flipped out. So now cuz of one person I've been banned from my own tree...my own info I've added.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
Anybody know where I can go to & force them to let me have access to my stuff again. It's our own personal info. If they want to block me from the guy who's pissed at me go ahead. But they can't keep me from my own info.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
And no I can't afford an atty. This is one of many things I've been ripped off about. I can't afford an atty for anything else so I shouldn't be able to for this either. There's got to be some kind of moderator site or something???
PeterJML Send email
 
Feb 27, 2012

Do Not Add Tree Here

Geni.com should be struck off the WWW and the owners taken to court for misleading the public.They are in breach of their own PRIVACY policies.I took out a years subscription for US$59.40 (Geni Pro) in July 2011. In October of 2011 my privacy was compromised by devious means by staff members of Geni.com; my profile was put up on GOOGLE search without my authorisation.After many "Tickets" requesting they remove the page from Google, and contacting Google Australia eventually it was taken down. I closed my account with them and in the process reminded them that they owe me a partial refund.This has never been paid.To make matters worse these Geni buffoons put my profile back up on Google search(Dec.2011) for their advertising purposes. I am considering legal action against Geni.com staff and management.

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