what is sandbagging?

It's when people fill bags with sand in expectation of a storm where water is expected to be a problem. They place these bags of sand strategically to address the water danger, so sandbagging can be a good thing. That's where the term sandbagging comes from. 

     The origin of the term comes from early- 19th century muggers who would fill hidden compartments in the large cuffs of overcoats popular at the time with sand. Apparently unarmed, they could knock out an unsuspecting victim with one heavily-weighted blow to the head.

     This trick of deceiving others as to their true potential later came to be applied to any contest where someone deliberately underperformed in order to lure the "mark" into a large increase in the stakes and then showing their real strength. In chess it means someone who deliberately loses a bunch of games at the local chess club or inexpensive small tournaments in order to lower their rating and fall a couple of classes to have a good chance of winning a class prize in a big-money tournament.

     The US Chess Federation has rating floors below which a player's rating cannot fall (about 200 points below best rating), so someone with a 1975 best can never be rated below 1700. Still, a player whose actual strength is about 2100 can be careful to start losing when their rating nears 2000 and then sandbag their way back to the B class for a shot at the good $$. Not much can be done about such behavior--anyone who has played for a few years knows that there are times when you just aren't in good form and will lose a lot of rating points for a while.

Most sandbaggers just resign the game to get their ratings down. Definitely agree with you.

Some more or less obvious observations: I meet a lot of 900 rated players who are at a 1200 level but, again, 1/0 games are so insanely fast, that it makes sense that these players' ratings tank. Then there are these 500 rated players, also playing at a 1200 level, and then they get 15 points for a win while I get 1 point for a win. In conclusion, making sure that sandbagging is against the rules makes sense, but it does get ridiculous.

Arena formats are a great opportunity for weaker players to get paired up against strong opponents. This was the case for me, I managed to wipe the floor clean with a 1800+ player while I was a mere 1200.

On the flip side, the system does balance out with 700 rated players and lol, I lose the fraction of the time.

intentionally running your score down with loses or creating a new account. chess.com does little about either.

I keep getting restricted from entering bullet tournaments because it says I am sandbagging but I try my hardest every game.... I don't understand why I am being flagged as a sandbagger by the computer... its been doing this to me for the past two weeks... The computer doesn't seem to understand that bad players like myself have a naturally fluctuating ELO rating... i move between 500-700 pretty easily and often in bullet chess but if I drop a single digit below 600 i get blocked and flagged as sandbagging by the computer and it is so infuriating... What should I do ????

Yeah, this is generally the knock on effect, sandbaggers also increase the pool of players rated and produce strange results making chess.coms entire rating system inaccurate which ripples through the site.

If I play in a tournament, generally I will encounter 2-3 sandbaggers, which means even if I scote even against equal rated opponents, I come out with quite a large net loss in rating. If I play two or three in a row I am often down over 100 rating points, so guess what happens when I start playing people in casual games where there's no incentive to sandbag. I end up getting paired with people who I can beat pretty easily. I don't learn, they get smashed and lose disproportionate amount of points.

it's generally just pathetic these players rated around 1700 (because none of them are actually that good, no one that plays the game to master level derives pleasure from this) enjoy beating up on beginners for absolutely no apparent reason.

My account is Sandbagging. I can not join the tournament. What I have to do now. Please suggest me

anything done to get an "unfair" advantage should be considered as cheating, but how do you prove sandbagging , is it in anyway possible to prove  ? in this regard the host should have a program in place to identify high ranking players appearing to go on a losing streak and monitor activity, it will not be possible for us ordinary players to detect or pick up on sandbagging.  

What is the penalty for sandbagging? I mean whats the restriction period for a sandbagger? 

What's the point they wanted to make their rating low anyways decreasing their points will only make the process quicker. It is also hard to detect if the 'sandbagger isn't losing by fools mate and can be mistaken for just a bad few games.

there isnt one i dont think

Sandbagging bad

I honestly got destroyed by them easily. 1400 rated players actually 2800. Here is my statement. If I am 1000 as 2500 who beats Gothamchess, that’s it. I don’t want to be reported if that happens.

people destroyed the rating system.

The term is smurf.