English Chess Forum

I paid for a subscription to the website for the last world championship.

I assumed they were a normal type of web business, however, I just got an email saying they would renew my subscription for $25 on November 9th.

There is no visible means to remove one's subscription, either in the email or on the website, logged on or otherwise.

I have sent a mail to support, but not happy with this means of doing business, even if support do unsubscribe me.

Anyone know the people running this site?

Paul,

Which web site are we discussing ?

What's the URL?

worldchess.com

Oh, tracing the ownership of World Chess is quite the labyrinth if I recall

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 04, 2019 11:43 am

Oh, tracing the ownership of World Chess is quite the labyrinth if I recall

Don't we all just believe it's Merenzon? He is certainly the CEO.

As I recall there's a World Chess Events Limited and a World Chess PLC and I can't remember if the relationship between the two was entirely clear.

Anyway, while their page about themselves does not actually tell us anything about themselves, Companies House tells us that it's Merenzon and a guy called Matvey Shokhovtsov. Whether they're really the people in control, well, who knows.

Matvey Shokhovtsov appears to be the legal guy involved in trying to stop us seeing the moves live unless we pay

Two emails and two voice messages left on their corporate telephone number (USA), no sign of a response.

I fear they will just attempt to renew, without bothering to remove me from their subscribers. Easy money, no customer care necessary.

I guess I will have to talk to my bank to see if there is any way I can prevent payment being taken, otherwise try the various avenues for consumer advice.

And, of course, only one week's advance notice of the renewal, to make it really awkward to cancel.

Paul McKeown wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 04, 2019 11:54 pm

I guess I will have to talk to my bank to see if there is any way I can prevent payment being taken, otherwise try the various avenues for consumer advice.

If you paid by Direct Debit and have online banking, cancel the DD. If it's through a credit card, I'd imagine you have to contact the issuers to cancel.

Plastering this story all over their twitter feed and facebook page seems to have provoked some sort of response. I shall await developments.

Presumably this has happened to other people?

From the Twitter feed, it is obvious that lots of people have the same problem, various complaints.

Kicking off a storm on Twitter would appear to have produced a swift response. They appear now to have cancelled it.

Anyone else this happens to, my advice: s**t all over their Twitter feed. No point using the official support channels, they just ignore you.