How do some people start at 2000

I've noticed that some people start with a 2000 rating on chess.com. How is this possible?

When you sign up on the site for the first time it asks you if you are new to chess, a beginner, an intermediate or an advanced player.

So if someone selects let's say advanced, they'll have a higher initial rating.

But if you say you're advanced doesn't it start you at 800?

Nope, if you say you're advanced you won't have an initial rating of 800.

@above I have a friend who is 1900 fide but he doesn't want to start at 800 and waste time beating people worse than him

Yes, I learn from my sister who is 4 foot 5 inches! I'm bigger than her, at 5 foot 2 inches.

can't wait until my enemy is smaller than me. I will crush him like a bug.

As far as I know it's currently like this:

New -- 400
Beginner -- 800
Intermediate -- 1200
Advanced -- 1600
Expert -- 2000

Yes, earlier the highest you could start was 1800, but it's 2000 now.

I don't know.

The smart reason would be because they ran analysis on the skill of their incoming members vs the ratings they decided to start with.

The dumb reason would be because they lowered the lowest to 400, and thought 400 gaps were nice, and keeping 5 options meant the highest was therefore now 2000.

Luckily RD largely takes care of it, so having someone start extra close to their real rating isn't so important.

By the way, almost every time I play someone with a new account with high rating like 1 700 - 2 000, it turns out to be either much weaker (probably around 80% - 90% of the time) or a cheater. I am not sure if even once it turned out to be someone legitimately strong that plays like their rating. 

There is a special index that takes into account how many games have been played. This means that a new player has big jumps for the initial games so even if a 2000+ player joins at 800, they will be playing other 2000+ players in a very short time and vice-versa.

I think that new players with easy wins and fast rise are often mis-interpreted as cheats.

Back when I joined, we had to start at 1200... and LIKED it. None of this poncy "I'm a 2000 player" booshwa.

... of course, back then computers were made out of sticks and bear-skins.

No no, I am not trying to shame someone who legitimately beats me. It is just that even when I don't suspect anything and lose due to my blunder to a newly created account with high rating, it often turns out that this player ends up banned pretty quickly. The cheaters are a minority and I've told that majority of new 1 700 - 2 000 rated accounts just turns out to be severely overrated. For instance, yesterday I had a game where I checkmated my opponent in 13 moves (he was rated close to 1 800 before the game) and it was obvious that he is a beginner. 

I wonder why would anyone overate their game by such margin.

Dunning-Kruger...

Many new players have only played their immediate family / friends. With a skill level like 1000 they may hardly ever lose and think they'll at least intermediate when they come online, maybe advanced.

Perhaps 2 settings are enough. Simple "are you new to chess?" If you choose yes, then you start at 400, and if no, you start at 1 200. The only exception would be a confirmed titled player or something like that.

You are probably right. 

I can remember being unsure which category to choose between intermediate and advanced. It would be useful if it showed the start grade in brackets.

That is true, I ended up choosing second lowest and I got over 1 200 quickly. But that is different to when someone chooses to be 2 000 and ends up being 700 or lower.

You meant Children.