Kicking Double Standards - AKA Where do I get a refund?

So, despite spending the last year trying to ignore every flavor of the most offensive racism and misognyny in the chat here (and messaging the admins with suggetions on this issue), I decided to purchase an account because some of the features are worth paying for.

Today, I apparantly made the cardinal sin of saying a "naughty" word in chat. I am now kicked and unable to log back in despite being a paying member.

I understand young people play here. But all you have to do is spend an hour in the top games chats to be exposed to every nature of ACTUALLY offensive nonesense from jew-hatred to woman bashing. Most of it coming from the same children who apparantly can't handle 1 adult using a "naughty" word with another adult.

Apparantly its perfectly logical that we not expose our children to a meaningless word, but actual hate and ignornace is par excellance. 

Get real. And either let me back in or give me money back.

You want to kick free users fine, but I'm not paying to be denied services. And if you want to kick anyone then you better start kicking people for saying something a whole lot more offensive then a word that everyone over the age of 8 uses.

What was the word? The chat system blocks all the usual ones.

It's so heinous that I wouldn't possibly want to even abbreviate in fear of some innocent child filling in the blanks, pronouncing it in their head, and Satan himself unfurling through the monitor to beat the poor child over the head with an unabridged copy of the Devil's Dictionary.

It was "the usual", I may have used 2 of them. Who knows, I don't care, I'm not ashamed to be human. I cuss occasionally, not all the time, sometimes something slips out and that's how it is. If this site's only option to deal with normal humans while letting the worst kind of ignorant hatred run rampant is to deny paid service to it's customers then - no thanks.

Yeah. It is sad if Chess.com is not punishing people for hate speech.

I had an opponent call me a 'gook' once. I just laughed because I'm a white guy.

But why even type it?  It's not like banning for profanity is something new or surprising here.  Paying doesn't entitle you to take the site for granted or allow you to ignore the rules.

And anyways, was that guy even worth typing a word (or words)?  Whenever I see an opponent vent, I just laugh;  I mean, it's the internet, is some angry guy calling me "bad words" on chess.com really going to get under my skin?

There's some kind of a sliding scale "timeout" depending on how bad and how many words.  It's not a permanent ban by any means.  You're probably already back on by now.

It's a common part of my vernacular and it's completely legitimate part of my (and this site's) native language. As such it slips out occasionally even when I am trying not to use it. Especially if I'm talking to a friend.

But who among us hasn't had to "pardon their french" at some point? A non-paying customer a restaurant, for instance, might be asked to move on whereas a paying customer would be at most kindly asked to refrain from using whatever word is offending.

So yes, I think there is a reasonable expecation of service here for paying customers. Certainly no reason to forfeit my game, kick me, and ban me with absolutely zero warning or notice. Also, it wasn't made clear to me anywhere when signing up that I would be denied service for using common slang, a part of my native language.

But, the double standard here is what I have issue with, and what I hope some staff member will respond to.

I know you're upset goldprospector but it's just a dumb computer program following instructions.  Were Chess.com to hire enough folks to monitor all the chat here, unemployment figures would look much rosier.  It's easy for a computer to make a judgement call on a "bad" word but more complicated insults whether antisemitic, homophobic, sexist or racist are  more difficult.  There is no deliberate double standard; it's just a limitation of the technology.

One time an opponent called me a dumb. Just that.

"You are a dumb"

A dumb what?  I am still waiting for an answer What am I a dumb of?

        "As such it slips out." It is a small point, I know, but when one is typing in a chat section online, surely words, profane or otherwise, do not "slip out". I wholeheartedly agree, on the other hand, that some of the views expressed on the forums are reprehensible and deserving of sanction. (Lets be cautious and not undermine free speech)

The analogy is not very inspired. What's a non-paying customer, exactly ?

You cannot fail to see that complaining about double standards when it comes to form vs. content while at the same time asking for a double standard of paying vs. free is sort of weird.

I can't tell if this is being pedantic for sake of argument or if it's really not clear that there exists in our world a demographic of "non-paying customers"...this subject being discussed on a website populated predominately by this exact group of people and all (including yourself). Ok fine. Non-paying people who happen to use the services offered by a private, for profit business. 

I won't dispute I am uninspired though. My ban is over. I have better things to do than write thesis level philosophic business analogy.

Not that I have the ability to do that anyways, but it sounded like a scholastic way to storm out of the room in the presence of an obvious erudite such as yourself and go about my business.

Didn't your parents ever teach you to think before you speak (or type)? You're now in "timeout", just like if you were one of those kids who were sent to the corner to "think" about your use of swear words.

From your comments on this thread alone, I'm of the impression that, based on your attitude, you had this coming to you.

As for refunds, you should re-read the terms of service (TOS) agreement. It states that you may only receive a refund within 30 days of your purchase of a premium membership and that chess.com is not liable for banning or restricting your account if you violate the TOS.

That sounds frustrating goldprospector. Baddogno is right, though. It's not an actual mod who temporarilly banned you, it's a computer doing keyword searches for flagged words and phrases. 

I'm sure you're able to login to live chess by now. Maybe in the future you could use the Shakespearian Insult generator? 

The TOS is a contract.  If the contract states that they can ban you, suspend you or even terminate your account after you paid, then you're out of luck.  If you don't like the terms of the contract, you should not pay for a membership.

Notably, the same is true for most commercial contracts.  If you breach, the other side gets to terminate, and you don't get what you bargained for because you violated the terms of the contract.  A common clause these days is a FCPA clause, which states that if the party contracting for goods/services finds out that you bribed a government official, then you don't get paid even if you already performed the services or provided the goods.  I've heard some vendors complain about such clauses, arguing that it is "unfair" not to get paid if the services have been performed.  However, the simple way to avoid the bad consequence is DON'T BRIBE ANYONE!

While I cannot claim never to have said a "naughty" word in my life, I generally refrain from using profanity.  I don't think it is ever necessary to use profanity, and it really just shows emotional immaturity.  There is always a better way to express your point without profanity.

This is especially true for written words.  In the heat of the moment, I mgiht blurt something out while speaking that I regret.  However, if I am typing something, I can always pause and proofread before submitting.

My advice to the OP is to never post something when angry and to always proofread and pause before submitting.  This is not just to avoid profanity but to make sure that one's posting is cogent, respectful and helpful.

Blah blah blah justification followed by "I swore and got banned temporarily".  The solution is:  control yourself.  Nothing "slips out" on a keyboard.  If you can't stop yourself from trash talking or responding to same, then turn off chat permanently while playing.

Take a tip from Abe Lincoln--he wrote several harsh letters to some of his generals (McClellan, Meade, etc.) that were found after his death unsent.  He vented his temper on the page, but put them away until he calmed down and re-read them.  In todays vernacular, he never pressed the "send" button.  There are a few people on this site that could learn from Ol' Abe.

                 "I'am not paying to be denied services".    funny how that works heh?!   Some people get married to be abused. Some people join the military to be abused. Consider it, your contribution to mankind's irrationality.

               "start kicking people for saying something a whole lot more offensive".      Go to court and try that.   "your honor, I know I was going 105mph, but the guy in front of me was doing 125mph".