Chess.com does not provide an experience worth paying money for

I am sad to say this, but I have never been more frustrated with a service I've paid for. The layout of chess.com and all the premium features are phenomenal and well worth the money. However, I made my premium membership purchase with the intention of using the tactics trainer and playing most of my games via my mobile device. I don't think it's any sort of news to any chess.com user or affiliate, the mobile app is total garbage. It has never worked well and all chess.com can say is, "don't worry, we have a end all be all update coming up that's going to solve all the problems." Besides playing games against ghost pieces or having glitched time controls that leave you scratching your head and wondering why you're still playing, the maintainance updates are completely unreasonable. Chess.com does not offer any form of flexibility for people to play or use the tactics trainer. The maintainance updates crash games without warning and disable the tactics trainer. You can't schedule a tactics training session for a certain time, you have to just hope the app is available and won't crash when you have time to use the service you are PAYING for. Why does chess.com allow users to start 15|10 games and then run maintainance 4 mins later. It's far more frustrating to start a game and get booted than it is to just be denied a game off the bat. Stop allowing games to start 10-15mins before maintainance. Even with winning position and piece count, maintainance inturuptions get marked as a loss on my record and drop my rating. That's just brilliant. Chess.com offers some great things, but when you are taking people's money, you are obligated to have your services be operational and accessible.

Have you tried reporting these issues to the right channels?  Or do you feel this approach is far more effective?

The only other mobile app. that is this useful is ICC's ... and even they don't have videos and other goodies.

If they are giving a 4 minute warning, usually that means that it's a pretty vital fix that is affecting a lot of people, and needs to be done quickly. They often give longer warnings when it's something that's planned.

As for the mobile app, mine is fine. Are you using the iOS app? If so, that's not entirely their fault either. Sure, the app has issues, but, dealing with Apple to make quick changes is... well, impossible. They are so bogged down in beauracracy that you just can't make changes at any meaningful speed.

I don't think it's breaking news. Chess.com knows what's going on. The main issue is that they constantly run server maintanence. I'm guessing somewhere upwards of 8-10 times a day. Possibly more.

I'm using the iOS app, yes. And it's not about making quick changes in regards to the server maintenance. There is NO warning on my app. And WHY, oh WHY would you even allow people to start a 15|10 or a 30min game when you are about to run maintenance??? If it's regular, rolling server maintanence, then disable all new games 15min prior to shutting it down.

If you missed one of my original main gripes, it's that my rating is constantly affected. Say I start a 15|10 game with no warning that maintenance is about to happen, I make 6 moves, and I'm up a piece. BAM! Server maintenance, 7mins into the game. Then later I look and for some reason I ALWAYS get a loss (via Abandoned Game). I don't know why, if it has something to do with usernames or account ID #'s chess.com assigns, I don't know, but whatever it is, no matter the position at the time of an update, I get a loss everytime and my rating drops. That should NOT happen. 

I wouldn't worry about your rating. If you are good enough to get up a piece 6 moves into a game, you are obviously extremely talented and able to make up that lost ground.

Thanks for your fantastic reply. I suppose I'm completly out of line for expecting a company that I paid over $100 to, to actually provide me with the service expected. If your cable TV went out a dozen times a day or if your internet provider dropped service a dozen times a day, you would have a problem with it. But I'm just suppose to deal with Chess.com and thier incompetance. It's not about making up ONE loss, 50% of the games I play on the app get inturupted.

I just got booted from a great game against a player +200 my rating, automatic loss for me via "Abandoned Game" as I always recieve losses from server maintanence. 100% of the time, no matter the position or piece count, if the server bumps the game, I lose.  

You aren't going to like my suggestion, but have you ever tried online (what the rest of the world calls correspondence) chess.  I know, I know, you don't want to sit around waiting 3 days for someone to move.  Most people don't take anywhere that time to move and if you have a dozen or so games going at once it doesn't matter (and of course there are people with dozens of games going so they can always  play chess if they want).  No more worries about disconnections and when you want to play live, then do it from a PC.  I know this is a "making the best of a bad situation" solution, but it would be a shame to leave the site.

yea i did play for a bit. I liked the games that moved along. but then i'd get the occasional bum that won't resign and waits 3 days to make every move because he knows it's a loss and is trying to maintain his rating for an extra week or something. maybe i'll start back up.

My internet provider DOES drop service a dozen times a day. And I don't have a TV. It's probably why I don't sympathise with your situation. Also I can't understand how you lose 50% of all your games due to maintenance issues - without this being a huge exaggeration.

stop moaning! it's not so bad. not perfect but still u have an advantage over players who aren't paying. 

Did you read my comment clearly ? I said "mobile app".  

I'm pretty sure I've always been warned 30 minutes before any maintenance.

I've never had a warning on my iOS mobile app.

I also doubt if it is worth the money. My gold membership is expiring soon and considering upgrading to premium. But all of the problems with Tactics Trainer, PGN downloading and Live Chess I have experienced, and other problems such as with videos I've heard of made me hesitate.

Do keep in mind that if you pay yearly ($99/year for diamond) it comes out to $8.25/month- a significant savings and absolutely reasonable price. I paid yearly for my platinum membership which was $49/year, working out to $4.09/month, close to half the cost than if you pay monthly, and these are reasonable prices in my opinion for the services offered. I don't understand why people would pay monthly for their memberships, but that is their business! :)

1 year Diamond membership = roughly 16p a day.

Can of coke = 4 days membership

Newspaper = 2-3 days

Packet of smokes = 46 days

1 pint of beer = 21 days

When I break it down like that, I really can't see an argument for it not being good value for money. Sure, I was not exactly thrilled with the technical support I received on the one occasion I needed it, but overall the site is definitely worth 16p a day.

Saying that, I wouldn't buy a membership if I only intended to play via the app. Then again, I can see why anyone would.

Everyone has their own value proposition. Frankly, for me, the value is in the videos. If it were not for the instructional material, I would not pay for a membership as I can get good subsititutes for chess.com at other places for free.

Having said that, the videoes are worth several times what I am paying... at least it is to me.

It's all because of the internet era, people expect everything to be free ! Personnally, I paid for a diamond membership and I can say it is worth every penny of it ! The video section alone gives me the feeling that I'm coached by the best players out here ! You can watch videos by top GMs and IMs explaining every single part of the game (openings, pawn structures, tactics...).

For instance, last weekend I played in a tournament and my opponent chose to play the king's gambit opening. Luckily, the day before that, I was watching a video by FM Lilov on this particular opening and ended up crushing my opponent even though he was rated a hundred points over me!!!

I personnally think that every player who is serious about getting better at chess can HUGELY benefit from a membership on this site.

Also, I don't see the point about complaining here in front of everyone and I find it quite disrespectful to insult the guys' work on this site. For instance, I can only imagine how much work it took from some guys like IM Rensch or IM Pruess to put together all this fine material on this site, and I would feel quite disappointed that, in return, I get comments like this.

(Pardon my english, I'm french so I'm trying my best here)

This is where I'm coming from. On paper, all the ammenities are amazing, It 100% worth the money, but as many of the members replying to my post seemed to miss the key word "experience". I said, "chess.com does not provide and EXPERIENCE worth paying for".

All the things I was promised when I dolled out my $100 are not acessable when i need them. It's the technical support side, which I don't feel is going to improve by the time my subscribtion runs out, i've had nothing but headaches, so with that, I can't swipe the visa in good faith. I'm not in front of my computer all day, mostly i'm on my mobile, and it has been way too unstable. That's all I can say.

Some of you missed the point. If you are happy with what you get, that's fine. It's your opinion.

However, why other people cannot complain about chess.com if they are not satified with what they paid for? There are many issues here that have not been solved for a while. That's the truth.

Just because you are happy, I cannot complain it? What is that?