Tournament matchups

I am currently in a tournament playing an opponent with rating 289. My rating 1502.  I win and get ZERO rating points, lose -14.  How does this matchup happen?  

The other concern is people using software help.  Had 2 other occasions losing to players with ratings 900?

Anyone else with similar experience ?  

If you're talking about Daily chess, the players are split into groups and depending on the number of groups the highest rated player goes to group 1, second highest to group 2. This moves down until all groups have 1 member, then starts back with group 1 and the (group count +1) rated player is in group 1, etc.

In an open event, in the first round, there will be a wide range of ratings in each group.

https://support.chess.com/article/501-how-is-seeding-and-group-placement-determined-in-multi-group-tournaments

For Live events, they are standard Swiss paired events. So, players are sorted by rating and top half plays bottom half in the first round, in rating order. If it's an open, and you're at the bottom of the top half, you'll play the bottom of the bottom half, which would be the lowest rated players. For subsequent rounds it is similar but done in score groups.

https://support.chess.com/article/758-what-is-a-swiss-tournament

I was not so much concerned about the exact rules as I was maintaining at least some level of interest in the tournaments.  Seems the structure could be adjusted to avoid such odd pairings.  Why would I join a tournament again to be matched up with a 900 player who is cheating?