Chess.com overcharging in UK

Given Chess.com's failure even to acknowledge that their UK charging is wrong, I have had no option but to report Chess.com directly to the UK Advertising Standards Authority (http://www.asa.org.uk/).

I have this evening made a formal written complaint to the ASA, attaching copies of Chess.com's UK advertising (in £), their invoice to me (in £), and their charging (in USD).

This overcharging is not legal in the UK.

The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK government's independent regulator for advertising across all media, with wide-ranging statutory powers to compel companies to operate within UK law.

Fight the power!

This is worth a look as well...

http://www.dollars2pounds.com/Charts

If you follow the graph with your cursor, it gives the GBP/USD exchange rate (i.e. the amount in Pounds-Stirling that can be bought with 1 US-Dollar) on any given day.

 For 7 USD  to equal 4 GBP, the exchange rate would have to be 0.571 GBP per Dollar (or 1.75 Dollars per GBP) but the rate has been nowhere near that for several years!

In fact you have to go back to the 5th./Oct/2008 to find the last date on which 7 dollars was close to being worth just 4 pounds. It does raise the question as to what figures chess.com is basing it's exchange rate on   

I'm going to check my bank statement to se what I was charged for my annual subscription!

Good for you 'crabby' !

Hi! Just found this thread :)

First off, we aren't intentionally showing one number and then charging a different number. Definitely not. But I am sorry that it appears that way!! My apologies!

I'm looking into this, but I'm sure it's either a rounding error on our part, or a case of your bank up-charging the conversion rate. 

Either way, I'm very sorry and I'm looking into seeing what's going on right now. 

Thanks,

Erik
Chess.com 

And FYI - we aren't even able to charge your card in GBP through our account. Looking at it now with the current exchange rate, it is definitely either a messed up conversion on our end, or an outdated exchange rate or rounding issue. Investingating now...

Whatever the reason for the cock up, innocent or not, chess.com have processed an unauthorised transaction...very naughty!

Perhaps once you've resolved that you can find out for me why I have never been able to view my live games in game explorer? I have emailed your staff about this a couple of times, but only got responses saying they would investigate.

And maybe after that you can work out my tax returns...Because i'm sure my second house should have a swimming pool.

are you someone famous?

It's hazzerbow! and his expensive crap!

Thats plagiarism Doggy...

No Sir! I've had my shots.

p.s. Any more of this and I'm likely to lose my distemper.

When I purchased Platinum in April last year, my chess.com account states £32, but I've been charged £32.50 ($49). Mmmm...seems to be policy to advertise and bill in sterling but charge in dollars. Not nice! It's only pennies but hardly ethical.

Well thats a good job because Eric is about to report you to the FYI and they need to know your GDP as soon as you've completed your IMP.

So suck it up Dawg!!

Thats Rupert!!  Where did you find Rupert you fiend?  He has the secret to chess.coms history in his glass eye.....It tells the story of how ERic is not the true owner..Nor his evil gang of villain pretenders...OMG it's  FYI with LMAO......

Interestingly, not only has this thread been moved to "Off Topic" but I'm no longer receiving alerts also.

I call "Shenanigans!"

Erik - It is simple.

In the UK, you advertise and invoice in Pounds Sterling (GBP), but you actually bill in US Dollars, and let the poor user pick up the exchange rate difference, perhaps an additional 10 - 20% dependent on how the exchange rate goes in any given month.

In my case, for Platinum membership, you advertised and invoiced me 4 Pounds Sterling per month, but you actually charged 7 US Dollars to my Visa card, causing me to have to pay over 13% more than authorised.

Multiply these figures up by maybe hundreds of thousands of UK Premium users, signing up for perhaps an advertised £63 per annum, and paying a lot more - it is a lot of extra money extracted by Chess.com - a guaranteed recipe for generating a lot of disgruntled and disillusioned customers.

Note the above posts and see how many UK users are now going back to their bank and credit card statements to see what they were actually charged by Chess.com versus what they authorised.

Judging by feedback from various other UK users, it seems you have been doing this for a long time ...

I have had no sensible or acceptable response from Chess.com to my tickets on this issue.

To be frank, most Chess.com staff responses to my ticket have been laughable.  Yours is the first sensible Chess.com staff response I have seen.

Other Chess.com staff told me (a) it's not us, it's your bank overcharging you; or (b) there is no problem, it costs 7 USD in the UK and that's what we charged.

I wish someone at Chess.com would treat this issue sensibly and get it sorted as soon as possible.

Above all, Chess.com needs to be honest and transparent to all its UK users on all matters related to charging, in my opinion.