Fraud and Terrible Customer Service?

I currently hold a membership for chess.com. And I wanted to share my recent experience with everyone on chess.com. I am hoping for some light to be shed here and I'm curious to know if anyone else experienced anything similar.

Last month I noticed I hadn't been playing for a while so I decided to cancel my membership. To my surprise I found this process to be extremely difficult. I started on the chess app on my phone. On there it tells you to cancel through Google Play store. Google Play store showed that it does not have the ability to cancel my membership via my Google account. So I had only 1 option to cancel my subscription by using a computer to cancel. So I did. When I was cancelling my membership chess.com offered a free month. I declined this offer as I am not using it. And informed  me that my account would not be billed after July 24th.

  After I cancelled I then wanted to see if a refund was possible. So I turned to the support  page in which it sent me to a forum and the forum sent me back to the support page. Meaning that it was not possible to get a refund. I did try other avenues like phone numbers, emails and even the Facebook page. All roads lead to rome (support page, AI). I gave up on the refund. I realized that it was my mistake for not cancelling and chess.com doesn't  have to honor my mistake so I would just pay the piper in this case. Also, I figured since I am paying for a subscription then I would do some puzzles so I wouldn't feel like my money went to waste. Normally this would be the end of it.

Unfortunately not. Come to find out today July 24th , chess.com again processes a payment and continues my subscription with no authorization. So now I am in a bad situation. I can't get any customer service, I can't remove my card, and I'm being forced to pay for a subscription. So now my options are limited. I really enjoy chess.com's features but I can not let chess.com take advantage of my wallet like this. I have only two options right now, processing a chargeback, and either deleting my account or getting a new card. My account will likely get banned for processing a chargeback but I can't think of any other option. It was a good run, and unfortunately with no resolution I will not be able to be a member with chess.com anymore. So if anyone has recommendations on where to find a reliable virtual chess site with puzzles. Let me know and I'll look into it as I tend to play chess on and off. 

Today is June 24th, not July 24th.

If they said they wouldn't charge you after July 24th, you will have to wait a month to see if that happens.

For a refund, you use the Support tool and specifically choose the billing/refund related option.

https://support.chess.com/en/articles/9856544-how-can-i-get-a-refund-for-my-chess-com-membership

Had you purchased your original membership through Google Play, then you should have been able to cancel there. Website purchases have to be handled on the website.

That said, if you use the refund process above, staff will get your situation handled

I meant june

So your subscription billed you every month for the last five plus years?

It wasn't an annual subscription?

It's kind of important to get those dates things correct when you are alleging fraud.

No. I billed monthly for the last 4-5 months. I originally was going. To take it one month at a time but forgot about it after the second or third month. It is strange the billed me after I cancelled my subscription.

Sometimes I do anuals other times I do monthly for the last 7 years

I have been a member and a moderator for a long time and people always got their money back when there was a billing mistake.

I understand that dealing with the AI bot can be a challenge but I would continue to go that route rather than doing a charge back or closing your account.

I missed the small button on the screen that said get more help. So that is my fault. And I'm going to screen shot everything for now on so that way you don't imply that I'm stupid or making a false accusation.

I never thought you were stupid. I was just confused by what you said.

Martin and or I can try to contact Support on your behalf but it's important that we have the right information.

When did you actually cancel and get the notice that you wouldn't be charged going forward?

I'm sorry, as I thought you had implied this about me. I'm just stressed out by this situation because I knew for a fact that I cancelled on May 24th. Today, I was able to process a refund request through the AI but thank you for following up. I started doing puzzles a couple weeks ago and now I'm interested in chess again. I was intending to resubscribe to the gold tier after my diamond tier ended today.