What a Rip off

This website lets you sponsor memorials and pay them money for it, then they delete things that you put on your loved ones sites and they actually pick on you in a round about way. Very poor administrators running this site. If you try to e-mail a admin they will not try to resolve no problem with you and when they do anwser you it is always with a smart aleck remark. They show no respect towards their members or contributors. Also have a forum where they allow a small group of favorites to harass you and your sites and if you object to any of the forum members opinions they will delete the thread and ban you from the forums. This is actually just a if I like you website you are ok if not, then leave. It is run very unprofessionally and you should read some of the admins remarks to their contributors, they are so smart aleck. Seems they would rather fuss than run a legit website. And why would the founder not contact you back when you have a problem instead of ignoring you. He will sure take your money for sponsorships and for ads, but for a complaint he dont want to be bothered at all. They do not post any rules at all, but they make them as they go and let the forum people tell the other members what to do. Pitiful excuse for a "memorail" site to honor and respect your loved ones.

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This is my horror story on the memorial for my Uncle who died in WWII that I createdfor him.

I had spent a lot of time developing the memorial and researching him and his crew that flew a B24 and then went MIA. Then I decided to do a random search for my Uncle and found a duplicate and that was when things went wrong. This other memorial was created before mine but however I had accurate and complete information and paid to

sponsor the memorial.

The gut that entered the other memorial had gone to the American Battle Monuments web page and just started entering them into find a grave. This person entered all of the crew that flew with my Uncle except for one. He did not research them or care that he had incomplete and accurate information.

So I started sending him suggestions to correct them and when I came across my uncles I requested ownership of it and he refused saying that I was not "immediate family" even though I told him the memorial was for my Uncle. This was when I got Admin of find a grave involved and the transferred the duplicate to me and once I received it I proceeded to delete it, at the time I was not aware that I was not supposed to do that. But I did that because I had complete accurate and developed

memorial that I had paid to sponsor, and the creator of the other memorial decided to insult me by saying I was not immediate family.

Find A Grave has a broken definition of "immediate family": "direct relatives within four generations, this would be your siblings, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents." This allowed the creator of the other memorial for my Uncle to say that Uncle and nephews were not included in immediate family, when in fact immediate family in the dictionary does include Aunts, Uncles , nieces and nephews.

So when they resurrected the memorial that I deleted they merged the memorial that I developed and sponsored with the memorial that the other person created and deleted all of my information. So I deleted it again. Well by this time the other contributor had gotten the admin to agree with him that I was not "immediate family" and resurrected it

again but removed me from ownership. So I deleted all of the flowers and

pictures from the memorial that I contributed.

I had to get my 87 year old father involved, creating and account for him and had him create the ownership of the memorial which the creator proceeded to deny. So we had the admins transfer it again to my father. We had to agree not to delete it. Which we agreed not to delete the particular FAG memorial number that he created.

Now that my father had control of the memorial he proceeded to delete the information from the memorial removed it from the cemetery that it was in and created a new memorial under his name for my uncle. The contributor complained again saying we deleted the memorial when we did not and accused me of having two accounts. So my father deleted the one he created for my Uncle and added the one we agreed not to delete back. but with no information except for the message that we did not

authorize the that memorial.

Now the creator is complaining again and is threatening me and my father with banishment from FAG. My father and I feel that we have lost control over my uncles information and feel hounded and harassed by this other contributor now.

The people behind Fin d A Grave are all about Burials and Grave sites of Famous people, the paparazzi of the famous and notable dead. Genealogy and accuracy takes a back seat to this for them. When you flag a memorial as famous you loose all control over the memorial and it becomes the property of Find A Grave.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=whois

They have Find A Grave has violated their own policy in transferring memorial not once but twice: "This action is PERMANENT and cannot be undone." and "If the memorial in question is a direct relative (within four generations-siblings, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents) to you, and the original submitter is not family, then your wishes supersede theirs under our "Family First" policy."

This is a Warning of a concerned contributor to find a grave.

If you are having similar issue with Find A Grave contributors and administration and feel that their Family First Policies are faulty contact the Better Business Bureau: www.bbb.org

You will need Find A Grave Business Contact information which was difficult to find, but here it is:

Find A Grave Company Information

Company Name Find A Grave Inc

Headquarter PO Box 522107

Salt Lake City, UT, 84152-2107

www.findagrave.com

Country USA

Phone Number +1.801.671.4677

Industry Business Services

Employees 25 - 100

Revenue $1 - 10M

Ownership Privately Held

Tipton, Jim Marketing Executive Marketing Manager-Leve... Salt Lake City UT

jim AT findagrave.com

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There is another site out on the web now called Find A Grave Marker. They only upload digital images. They do charge a membership fee but the owner told me that you can have as many copies of the markers as you want. The administrators upload the images themselves and also there are no forums or memorials just the markers themselves for reference. I joined up and while it is still a new site, markers are uploaded each week. Since I joined 3 weeks ago they have added over 10 full cemeteries. I think they are looking for field photographers and offer a free subscription plus advertising. Check it out and see for yourself

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This is true. Recently a person unrelated to my direct line, "hijacked" my direct ancestor line. Most of the information she has listed is incorrect. She will not sign over the memorials, the admins told me to make double entries, which is against their own rules, and then when she joined her err filled memorials to mine; they wouldn't stop her. They booted me off the website for daring to complain about a ghoul.

On a another note; in one of their forums people where getting strangers death certificates and tracking down as many living relatives as possible.

Find A Grave is not a genealogy site, nor a memorial site, it is only for the truly twisted and gross.