can someone explain this please

I keep losing elo to players on classical who appear to be my rating of around 1500+ elo, then when you look at their stats after the game it turns out their like 2000 elo in rapid ! i mean surely this isn't right ?

There is something extremely fishy about this account but I can't put my finger on what. It does not look like an engine. perhaps this account was sandbagged, or given to a stronger player.

Edit: upon closer inspection I found the reason: The account was created 2017 and rlopaul kept losing until he hit the 1000 rating range and stopped. now he has returned to play at the end of 2019 ( thats when he got rated in Rapid) and is now gaining rating in classical as well. He has learned to play well in the meantime.

If you say so. But classical, blitz, and bullet all start around 1300. Then a year later, rapid starts at over 1800. Could be a youngster who learned that much in a year. More likely is your original theory: a different player took over the account, one who is better. It will all work out soon, as the classical, blitz, bullet ratings are steadily going up to match the rapid. Only a bit of false advertising on the lower ratings.

@Morozov and @sparowe14 i seem to encounter this kind of thing quite often, only i keep losing hard earned elo to experts and it gets me down a bit to be honest. I don't mind losing games to players who are genuinely 1500+elo but when they're like 1900 + elo in actuality (in rapid at least) and i lose (no surprise) it just feels wrong.

@Mrchess78 Just get better. This kind of thing happens less of ´ten at higher levels. Everyone has to play underrrated people from time to time.

Looking at his games I get a strange impression: he just plays the classical much worse than the rapid. In rapid games moves made and move time look natural (I haven't analized indepth though). May be he plays classical blindfolded?

@Mrchess78 please don't confuse ELO points with the lichess ratings points, they are not even remotely associated with one another.

@Morozov believe me , there's nothing i would like more than to be higher rated , but i'm not good enough yet unfortunately.
and this kind of points loss doesn't help.

@Gogland I mean i'm not accusing anyone of cheating , just that it seems wrong to play a rated game against someone , lose the game and then discover that the person who beat me was 1900 rated, and then i lose points, when if i had known they were 1900 i would have played my own level player and had a fairer match.

@OneDummHikk yeah i just use the term elo sometimes but i realise that there's a difference between fide, online rating etc.