Chess.com Reviews 1,585

I am extremely disappointed with Chess.com. After encountering opponents with suspicious accuracy (95%+) and reporting them, my own account was hit with automated 'Fair Play' restrictions, preventing me from entering Arenas.

When I contacted support to request a refund—since I could no longer use the service I paid for—they ignored my request and instead permanently closed my account with a false accusation of 'Multiple Accounts'. This is a blatant lie used as a pretext to avoid refunding a paying member.

The platform's automated systems are flawed, and their customer support is non-existent. I have already initiated a chargeback through my bank. If you value your money and fair treatment, stay away.

UPDATE (March 17, 2026):
Following my initial review, I can confirm that the dispute process has been successfully finalized.

Despite the company’s attempts to justify the account termination with unproven accusations, the case was reviewed under the regulations of International Card Schemes (Visa). Based on the available evidence, the process was concluded in my favor, overriding the company’s "permanent" decision and their refusal to provide a refund.

This serves as objective proof that their retaliatory actions did not comply with standard payment protection regulations. My advice to other users: If you face unfair treatment or arbitrary bans, do not rely on their internal support. Use the official dispute mechanisms provided by your card issuer and the global payment networks. Justice was served through the proper international channels.

so bad and so borring, the website bug and sometimes gives the win to the opponent

Very surprised about all the bad ratings. Works well for me and play many nice games, do puzzles and take some lessons. Ofcourse there are always people on online game services who play less fair, but that is hard to control for. In general a good service.

The site has smurfs every fing where at elo 100 to 500 but oh no if you wait time out your the bad guy not the games fault ur fault for playing someone so much better then you because this site is a piece of dog hits in someone's backyard. But don't worry if you resign or don't wanna play some in legend division when your just starting and it'll be nonstop bull fecal matter of facing legend and diamond division while your in wood or silver and they are clearly much much better its your fault for playing chess.

Like a lot of the other ratings here, I see a lot of cheaters, people either thinking for what feels like years in a 10 minute match or they are referring to someone/something for assistance in the game. AI, a really good chess player, etc. I'm able to beat bots with a 1350 rating with no hints, and I can't beat a 400 rating online. Please, make sure to use another site for online playing.

One star review on Chess.com

And wrote this comment:

I have uninstalled and stopped using Chess.com because I don’t support discrimination of any kind, and I don’t agree with what I see as anti-Russian bias. Condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is one thing; restricting Russian players’ accounts and removing or hiding their national flags is another, and it goes too far.

If Chess.com wants to take political positions like this, why isn’t it applying the same standard to other countries involved in controversial military actions, such as Israel or the United States? Personally, I wouldn’t support country-based restrictions in any case. Chess should be about chess, and political punishment based on nationality has no place in the game.

Mass cheating on chess.com

The site is a fraud; users with free accounts have no access to tournaments, and users who try to play are blocked on their site.

There is no access to any kind of course, no advanced tactics, and it's full of cheaters.

If you try to advance on the site with a free account and win more than 5 games or 3 in a row per day, they say it's suspicious and ban your account without prior notice.

chess.com only wants your money, nothing more. They hire players like Magnus Carlsen and Nakamura Ikaru to use as bait to catch beginner users.

chess.com shows no transparency to users on their site, just like lichess.com also shows no transparency. Anyone who is banned or has never been banned is simply a fraud; nobody is banned for cheating on these sites.

Play chess in person at a chess club or practice at home with a chessboard and a chess book; you'll improve a lot without needing online sites or YouTube channels or fraudulent streamers trying to sell expensive courses to take your money.

It's all a scam, be careful, don't pay anything to anyone.

Don't give your money to sites that support cheaters.

Listen, I'm not a grandmaster. I don't play in competitions. I play sitting in bed. Or waiting in a Doctor's office. Or bored, watching TV.
But EVERYONE on this app is using some kind of cheat app. The have zero customer support.
And because everyone cheats, I could play someone 200 below me and still get my butt kicked like they're Bobby Fischer. And it's just...not any fun anymore. It's just aggravating, and defeating.

It was a fun website and it improved my chess MASSIVE, but it all changed after my account got banned, they said i cheated (wich i didnt) so i made a new account, eventually they banned that account ASWELL and send me an email where i was able to make a new account, after this account ALSO got banned in less than a week i just quit Chess.com. Like why Chess.com?!

I like it But I would love to have a tournament versing botts I think that would be fun as and would really get me to play chess.com more and improve my chess through levels.

Their customer service is an AI Bot that doesn't work, awful, moving to lichess

1. When playing from a custom position, hints often don't work at all, i.e., nothing happens when one clicks on the hint button.

2. Sometimes hints do "work", but the suggested move is a blunder.

3. chess.com customer service is non-existent.

I happened to me several times but this time today my pawn has been taken by opponents pawn against the rules. I tried to report it and let it control by the website, but they do not care.

banned me for nothing and subscription fckng expensive if you want to improve

The user interface is horrible but this is still the best site to play online. I wouldn't advise you to pay for premium but this is a great site to play for free because of the huge amount of traffic and large number of beginners.

My account name is popolosoldier, and I bought the diamond membership to improve my game. I let my friend play a game this afternoon to show me some things, as he's a much more advanced player, and literally came back to find my account gone.

This is extremely unfair, given I've been on chess.com since mid 2024, and this same friend has played on my account in the past. Since buying the premium version, anything slightly out of the ordinary generates a ban. Very disappointed and will take this further to at least recoup my money. your anti cheat system needs to be better.

*Reply*
No email was sent to inform me about anything. I've reached out to support, yet you seem to respond faster to a negative review. Again, my friend has played before/ watched over my shoulder in the past to teach me openings and strategies and tutored me to improve my chess. If this is your standard, you'd need to ban players like Gotham Chess and anyone else teaching players, or maybe people who are watching his videos whilst playing chess. Also, why only ban someone after they've paid for a premium account? I had no issues prior to this with friends teaching me things.

What an absolute joke.

I got put against 1200 at 430 and it happened 5 times so I went 540-520-490-460-430and now have quit the game permanently.

This is a scam site. They only help, promote and support those who pay. If you do not pay, any complaint against you means you get blocked and thrown out. If you reach a certain level they will block you and throw you out because you are not allowed to win against those who pay,
I have, in about 4 years, tried this site with 3 different accounts. All accounts have been blocked for no reason. The last two accounts I mirrored two paid accounts. The two paid accounts are still there, the other two have been blocked. The funny thing is that one of my paid accounts actually do cheat ( I wanted to check). So you can cheat as long as you pay, but if you are non paying you are not allowed to win against those that do pay.

So, if you want to use this site you need to pay, otherwise it is pointless. They scam you to pay, if you do not pay you get blocked.

The second issue is that there are a lot of fake accounts, bots and cheaters up to around 1400. So you need to get to 1400 to play real people, but if you do reach that level they will block you and throw you out.

Also there is no warning, no strikes or appeal. Once they decide you cannot win against people that pay they just throw you out with no warning.

"You have a great site, Chess.com—I’ve said it many times and my game improved because of you. However, the connection drops where you decide I 'abandoned' the game, the fake moves (NOT MOUSE SLIPS as you claim), and the useless support chats erase all your positives. Twenty minutes ago you screwed me again in a game where I was up a knight and had a winning position just because your connection failed; I even tried the mobile app to save the match, but it was dead there too. I have a folder with over 100 games named 'screwed by the site' where I’ve recorded your other nonsense: 'fake moves' where I move to one square, but the piece lands on the adjacent one, ruining everything. Get it together! I see no adequate response, only petty moves like aborting 10-minute games after a 15-second glitch—are you serious? With these trash server connections, that’s the last thing you should be doing. I wonder why your rating here is 1.5 and why it’s so incredibly hard to find a place to leave you a review?"