Why some new member start with 800, 1200 or 1800 in rating?

yeah but when i started before i played any game i had 1200 in everything. and then i won and got more points. but some new member here i look at have not played any game and have 800. and some have 1000 and they havent played one game. and some have 1800 and havent played any games. some start from 800 and some from 1800. its weird. its like chess.com know how good you are when you register. but they dont. its weird

I guess they figure that giving new members a chance to start out with the strength they think they have is a good thing. Maybe the hopelessly optimistic 1800s balance out the deliberately sandbagging 800s. I liked it better before when all but the titled started out the same.

@paulchess this new guy starts with 800:
http://www.chess.com/members/view/Nikita1409
this start with 1000:
http://www.chess.com/members/view/Paulizzimo
and this with 1200:
http://www.chess.com/members/view/arkadykrav
everyone have 0 game played but diferent rating??

yeah @baddogno he started with 1800 and lost lots of ranking in tactic trainer and other thing. i dont understand why. is it like random what you get?

I'm not about to open a new account and find out for myself (the powers that be frown on multiples), but I thought I read that folks could choose where to start. Any recent members care to share?

When you register a new account on chess.com it asks you whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced player and gives you a starting rank based on what you state:
beginner-800
intermediate-1200
advanced-1800

When you register a new account on chess.com it asks you whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced player and gives you a starting rank based on what you state:
beginner-800
intermediate-1200
advanced-1800
^This is it.
I started with 1200 in rating in evrything and other people start with 1800 or 800 or 1000. why is it diferent?