Pardon for Banned members - A reality ?

I have a friend with a diamond premium membership that allegedly has been proven guilty of cheating . He declares himself not guilty, and I have accepted to be his attorney.

There is supposedly a chance for amnesty if he admits the crime, despite the lack of games in the evidence.

Is it really true that old catholic laws of repenting still are practiced on a US based site ? (I doubt it) Can he at least get a refund for the remaining 10 months he paid for ?

Thanks in advance for serious answers.

Read the following,  particularly the part about refunds. That should answer part of your question. 

https://www.chess.com/legal#subscriber

Thanks, Martin. It seems that refunds for banned members are not issued.

Reading between the lines, it seems that they are saying: If we don't show you evidence for kicking your ass out of the house, it simply means that we don't like you. Have a good life and deal with it. But thanks for your money.

I must ask my friend who he has spoken to. It doesn't sound like any of the friendly staff members that I've met.

" I have accepted to be his attorney".    How does it feel to lose your 1st case?     I DO like your approch thow   The Oooooold Catholic Blue laws defense.  LOL.  I like it   Can we interest you in any Church floggings?  Your in luck thow  Your "friend"/client is now elegible to join the Pete Rose fan club.     FREE!

Basically, if the account was banned for rules violations, the site is certain in their verdict and don't show proof as that can give details on how to avoid detection.

Obviously the defendant is a strong player with an average of 1450:ish USCF in 3 day chess.The harshness from the staff is therefore not a surprise to themselves, since they consider him a role model for the chess community (which albeit is a surprise to me).

Before they deleted his games I made some analysis with stockfish 6, 1GB hash and 128 MB 5 piece table bases. Not surprisingly, the defendant was declared impaired and below sever inferiority according to stockfish.

Dear participants of this thread, remember the old saying: A big man picks on a man of his own size, whilst the small and ignomimous man of normal size picks on the even smaller and weaker dwarfs (which is a shame).

A player at the master level would have been shown the suspected cheating games, and the cheating moves would have specifically been pointed out to him. And yet the master titled player receive his premium memberships for free, so he really doesn't feel mistreated for being banned at the end of the day. It's just business as usual for the masters.

I hope that the tactics trainer and the chess mentor soon will be available on other sites. Upcoming sites that will concentrate on us grown up amateurs and enthusiasts, instead of focusing on the professionals and the under 12 years infants.

    It would become a slippery slope. If they pardoned one cheater, they'd have to pardon all of them. Plus a lot of people would revert back to Catholocism

Games don't get deleted, you just have to know how to find them after an account is closed. Also, in general, it normally isn't one specific game or certain moves, it is usually over many moves over a number of games.

You can take a look at the  following group. While chess.com's methods are not exactly the same, the general ideas are explained in some of the forums: http://www.chess.com/groups/home/cheating-forum

Sometimes people leave their computers unattended while being logged in to a chessite.

There's only evidence that cheating has occured from the acount. The owner of the account could be guilty OR not guilty of cheating.Who knows for sure ?

Here's what i read about closed accounts:

What happens to a player who is found to have violated the rules of Fair Play on Chess.com?

• We close their account immediately; all games in progress are awarded to their opponents.
• We do not and cannot "restore" other users' ratings to what they would be in an alternate dimension where the Fair Play abuser never existed! Don't worry - just keep playing! You'll get better for it!).
• In many "first time abuser" cases, we offer a chance for admission and apology. If this is given, we will sometimes allow the opening of a new account; however, never is a user convicted of Fair Play abuse allowed to open the same account again.

AIUI, anyone caught cheating is not shown evidence of their cheating. Chess.com protect their cheat detection methods, and for good reason.

However, if you PM your client's username i can offer another opinion 

People who have gotten real lawyers and filed law suits have been able to have their cheater badges removed and even come back.

Maybe someone will do a Netflix documentary about your friend.

What about users who played users who were beaten by a cheater? What about users who played those users? It's impossible to completely remove the effect cheaters have had on the rating pool once the games have been played.

This topic belongs in the Cheating Forum. I predict that this topic is going to get locked.