Forces War Records Reviews 

so far, excellent, but now awaiting reply to a question

this is the best site to find your ancestry pass if the served in the armed forces

Was not sure if we would ever find this information,but l should have had more faith in your researchers to come up with the goods, well done and thank you.
regards Malcolm Molloy.

The website is easy to navigate, I have found many records over the years I would otherwise have never have found elsewhere. I especially love the map feature where you can follow troop movements throughout the wars, its especially helpful in finding out at which battle a relative has died if you have their death date.

I have been receiving hints fo a couple of years but I have never had one which involved my family.

Poor to be honest. Most of the records just tell me things I already know i.e. service number. There's nothing on when they enrolled, discharged, where they were deployed.

A very good resource! Its easy to search and very helpful in researching my father and grandfather's war history.

Great source of information. Helped loads in my quest.

Amendment 5th January (scroll down for original review).

Today I received a refund from Forces War Records. The customer service agent explained that they were looking at ways to make the terms clearer to customers and it was not their intent to be devious. I was asked (twice) if I would consider amending or deleting the review. Although I appreciate the refund, and accept their explanation as genuine, I also feel strongly that it should not take three emails and a public expression of dismay to receive a reasonable response. Therefore, I do not think it would be appropriate to remove the review or change the star rating. I am content to write this preamble to more accurately reflect the situation now. If Forces War Records change their policy (as they stated they are planning to do) I am sure it will be reflected in increasingly positive reviews and a higher rating. In this case, I am also happy to be contacted again and I will review my star rating.

Original Review below -

This company is not transparent about their pricing and adopt devious automatic opt-in policies, enabling them to re-charge your original payment card without notification. As with GDPR, surely there should be a requirement to opt-in, rather than being corralled into an ongoing membership and rather steep monthly bills (offered at almost half the price when you cancel, but not applicable to payments already taken).

If you sign up for a trial subscription, be aware that the monthly charges are set to auto-renew. This is not made clear, although apparently it is in the (teeny weeny?) T&Cs. In my opinion, this does not meet the criteria of a ‘trial’.

If you do decide to subscribe, change your settings immediately or cancel well in advance. I did not receive any notification and, despite cancelling on the day my trial subscription ended, I was charged for the following month in full.

When I noticed a pending charge of £8.95 on my bank account, I realised that I had been charged for the following month. Given that the payment had not yet been fully processed, and I notified Forces War Records immediately, I expected a refund would be given. However, when I emailed I was told I had cancelled too late (a few hours?!). When I queried why I had not been sent a reminder, a customer service agent simply stated they ‘did not need to tell me that I would be charged’. The email I sent enquiring about how I could submit a complaint was then ignored.

Given that throughout my ‘trial’ subscription, and even after cancelling, Forces War Records have been sending numerous emails telling me about irrelevant records, it seems particularly underhand that they would not simply send an automatic reminder.

Although I was disappointed at the lack of information provided in the site, I may have resubscribed in future if they had added more files. Now, I would neither subscribe again or recommend the site to anyone else. The lack of any reasonable response from the customer service team is reason alone to find an alternative. I also note that I am not the only person leaving a review about Forces War Records devious auto-renew policy. So, most likely a short sighted way to generate cash flow, especially as there are many other options to get more comprehensive information.

Staff very helpful and nice easy site to use.

033E138C
An excellent specialist source of war records to support my research into my family tree.

Extremely useful for researching family military records. More records appearing all the time. Found really good additional info like evacuation hopsital and sub unit. Well worth the subscription.

UPDATE: Customer Services have now refunded me my money. Good communication from this review, and prompt refund on the day they contacted me.

Found this site very informative when trying to source military service of ancestor

Easy to navigate and plenty of information.

Really angry they have subscription system on auto renew which i did not sign up to I have been paying for years and have not used it . You cannot even cancel it. puts your account on pause until a certain date then it will renew itsself cannot speak to anyone , no contact number, tried to email, but it would not let me send it. I am so mad, it seems these people just want to get money out of you. and make it impossible to cancel.

Generally disappointing in terms of the range of records on offer (I had already found most of the ones relating to my grandfather, and more, on Ancestry & Find My Past) and the email suggestions re links I received did not help in any way; in the end I turned that facility off. The only use this site held for me was that I finally decided to use their personal research facility, and Kevin was allocated in response to my request. He was excellent, and did turn up some records at the National Archives which were revelatory. None of those records were available on Forces War Records, though. So in general, a bit disappointing, though their specialist researcher was excellent and the fee was reasonable for what he achieved.