One of the players in the recent tournament that I directed is having the
US Chess id , but listed as " Not a US Chess Member. What does it mean in practical terms?
Would I be able to submit the tournament for rating changes? If not, what is the best corrective action?
In practical terms, you can treat them as having an expired membership. You will not be able to submit the tournament without resolving them in the same way you would resolve an expired membership. The best corrective action is to have the player pay USCF for a membership.
…the “Not a US Chess Member” happens when someone creates a USCF ID but does not buy a membership at the same time. There are some limited legitimate use cases for this relating to scholastic tournaments, I am given to understand, but what normally happens as a result is that we end up with a TD that can’t submit a tournament and a player that is confused about what they were supposed to do.
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I am willing to take a loss and pay for the membership from my own funds in a hope (perhaps a bit naive) that I can try to recoup the expense if they ever sign for my tournaments again. Do you know if office would allow me to do that?
You can absolutely do that. Just process a renewal membership through your affiliate like you would for anyone else.
Over the past few years in tournaments I’ve organized, I’ve had several new members with this issue. It usually occurs when a new member doesn’t complete the payment screen when becoming a member as their ID number is assigned before payment is received so they think they are done. I will typically get in touch with them ahead of time if I can and ask them to check their credit card statement. If the charge is not there, they didn’t complete the transaction. I make sure they know their number and ask them to contact Membership Services by phone so they can pay for their membership.
On rare occasions, they have a charge on their card, so I contact Membership Services myself to have them check. Usually that means that they need to refresh the server that MSA is on as something happened in the synchronization between the various servers.
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If this is a result of a clerical error, the TD/organizer can pay a $10 correction fee for each non-member. Many TDs have had players say “I just processed a membership online” and find out afterwards that they were not being honest.
Because this is not intended as a substitute for checking current membership and collecting dues from non-members during registration for the event, there are limits imposed on how many correction fees can be processed in an event. We also track correction fees for abuses by organizers, TDs or players.
Another option is to purchase a 2 month membership.
The process of syncing MSA with membership system records should improve under the Leago system, but there may still be a several minute lag between when the membership is processed and when it shows up online.
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