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That's right. You heard me. I am pretty upset at Market Leverage right now. And I am hoping that this will get their attention enough to stop ignoring me. 
(Because I was ignored the first time)...
The reason being is they seem to be housing and protecting hackers...
What do I mean? Well let me tell you my story...
A couple weeks ago my good friend (who will remain nameless) had realized that his site got hacked. He was so ticked off because he sends so much volume (we're talking $20,000+ a day in commissions) through his site that the few hours that he lost during this time cost him THOUSANDS of dollars.
Some annoying hacker had hacked into his site, installed a backdoor, and redirected his links to go to some market leverage offers.
Thankfully the Market leverage affiliate links have the publishers ID right in the link. Problem solved right? WRONG.
Actually... After contacting market leverage, nothing happened and nothing has happened. No information was turned over to any individual...
Today, I logged into one of my sites and what do you know. Some Son of a gun from Market Leverage hacked into one of my accounts and redirected my links to... MARKET LEVERAGE. Wow.
The result of this person hacking my links is still unknown but one thing I do know is that I will not stop talking poorly about Market Leverage until they tell me who the publisher with this ID is so I can pursue him or her in whatever means possible... If they want to protect hackers and keep allowing them in their network, then I sure as heck don't want to be working with them!
That being said, every hacker experience my close friends have had has been a result of someone redirecting links to market leverage. All I can say is... until they contact me and try to fix this, I will not be recommending them to anyone.
EDIT: So far Marketleverage has been pretty good about dealing with the issue and very responsive. I'll wait to tell you the results and what happens to this... publisher. I'm hoping to have him removed from every network by posting his information publicly (when or if I get it) and notifying every network I know of about his traffic.
You would post this on the EXACT day I started sending them volume.
I’ll be backing off until I hear more from you. Thanks for the update and good luck;)
I don’t like ML either. Luckly I have never sent them traffic so what you blogged about is not a concern for me. I just don’t like them because I noticed some of their offers have popups (on entry, not exit) and my affiliate manager has never got back to me when I leave him messages about offers I want to test. WTV.. there loss.
oh read your post to quickly before… haha. That is even more messed up.
thats really bad.
I am sure ML will help you out.. they have a good reputation
yikes… M.L. fucked with the wrong guy… give em his name M.L.
wow was the hackers publishers ID the same as the one who hacked your friends?
Wow that sucks. Sue Market Leverage for not suspending that user’s account.
Wow I don’t think I like ML anymore.. if there is one thing I hate is fucking leechers who don’t work for their money.
Damn those hackers… and damn that network who refuse to do anything about this…
I wonder how much that hacker earn in that few hours of hacking into the website…
$20,000 a day for a few hours… that’s adds up to quite alot… and its all pure profit with no ppc expenses…
Damn those hackers…
Jonathan,
Dina has tried to reach out to you to resolve this situation. I would like to assure you and your readers that we don’t condone fraudulent activity on our network. Jonathan please reach out to Dina at your earliest convenience. If anyone has any questions please don’t hesitate in reaching out to Dina or I.
Dina
dina@marketleverage.com
AIM: mktlvgdeborah
407-330-6627
Debby
debby@marketleverage.com
AIM: mktlvgdeborah
407-323-1190
You do realize you have big advert in your peel away for ML, right?
Sounds pretty shady, but I have a feeling they don’t condone anything like this.
They should have taken care of the issue ASAP though.
@Josh: Yea I don’t have time right now to edit it…
oh well. btw, just found your blog. I’ve been marketing online for about 5 years now. I do pretty well, but have never gotten serious with PPC. Looking forward to reading through your blog.
I read through a few other “Super Affiliate’s” blog, but haven’t really found much substance.
I believe yours is different.
See you around and hope everything works out for ya with ML.
Although I am not saying it is right that M.L. doesn’t tell you the name, I also at the same time would have to blame your friend. There is no sure way of keeping out hackers but the big question is what kind of security did he have on his site?
Like I said, there is no sure-fire way of keeping hackers out but your friend should’ve actually had a little bit more security to be honest. Hopefully all worked out alright with them…
wow. You said you noticed a publisher ID… Lets out this evil hacker!
ouch, that sucks, big time. After all this praise that I could have sworn was coming from you, now this happens. They need to clean up their act. Hopefully you figure everything out.
Feels shitty being ignored by someone you are doing business with eh? I’ve tried to contact you several times, several different ways, about your aff program and you don’t bother to respond. I realize you are talking about lots more money with ML than me but it’s the principal of the thing.
Definitely save that publisher ID and DON’T STOP pursuing the situation. If anything, post the publisher ID here on your blog so we can get a heads up.
Also, you never know if someone is trying to ruin someone else…..maybe somebody is hacking into sites and not posting their pub ID…but someone elses! Sad, but it could happen if someone was pissed off enough.
Also, definitely get a lawyer and ask them what you can do about this situation. Sue this asshole for all he’s worth.
wow, that’s horrible. you say your site was hacked by someone AT market leverage? like an employee? or someone using market leverage service? how did you know you were hacked?
btw…maybe now is the time to take down the market leverage flap ad?
WoW that’s an amazing story. Sucks man.
Kind of disturbing it took you making a public post about this to get some attention for something this serious. I don’t know what kind of response they had but it doesn’t sound like they took it serious enough to make sure it was being taken care of.
Beyond having friendly and helpful affiliate managers, I want to feel safe and that my network is looking after me. It’s bad enough having to worry about advertisers scrubbing leads without reason or not knowing if you can even trust an ad network with all the shaving rumors and such but not jumping on something this serious and making sure it’s taken care of right away is also pretty alarming. Hope it’s just a misunderstanding that that they take the time to fix it and do everything possible to take the hacker down.
Looks like Debbie responded, that might be a good start.
Hopefully Jonathan will let us know what Dina tells him… I haven’t used ML as of yet and I am curious to know how they would go about handling this type of situation. Jonathan, your friend should consider contacting the authorities in regards to being hacked and losing financially… they have the power to demand this type of information from any company; as it involves computer hacking and could constitute wire fraud among other things.
Not to be the “devil’s advocate” here, but what if the hacker wasn’t the one directly profiting from the hack?
This is far-fetched, but suppose I’m in a market and my competitor is running with marketleverage. I can get his affiliate id from his links, right? I know if I hack an affiliate’s site I’ll get caught, right? So why not stick in my competitor’s link and get them kicked off the network?
Like I said, it’s far-fetched but there are anecdotal stories of those who had their sites linkbombed by competitors to try and get them filtered in the serps. Just encourage ML to investigate it carefully.
Great to see ML’s employee stopping by here..
Wow, the power of 1 negative rant; it’s amazing. ML, you better fix this, quick or you will lose a lot of current or potential publishers.
Its really shocking jonathan.
But let us see, market leverage is saying that they will take care of the situation
Did the problem solved ? Caught the hacker ?
While I don’t condone hacking into other affiliates sites and stealing their commissions, Market Leverage (just like any network) has a responsibility to protect it’s subscribers at all times. They shouldn’t and HOPEFULLY WON’T release the identity behind any affiliate ID to another affiliate who comes poking around regardless of the reason.
Only under a government subpoena should they EVER release the info you are asking for. I WOULD NEVER use them (I don’t currently and never have) if I found out they folded to any demand like this and released another publishers affiliate id to anyone short of a government agency.
That’s horrible story. I really want to know if the problem solved.
Is the problem solved jonathan, did they catch the hacker or inform any information to you?
This happened with me few months back. Someone hacked into my server and changed my azoogle links. I reported it to my AM. They checked the logs and banned the hacker.
Like WayneDog said, in NO WAY should Market Leverage give out their members information to you whether it’s a legitimate user or a hacker. You shouldn’t even expect such requests to be fulfilled.
It’s unprofessional that you made a public post discrediting them before exhausting other more direct options to resolve the situation. It’s not their fault it happened, but they should now do everything to keep this member off the network.
You’re still advertising them on your site though…
Dude, that’s really unprofessional of you to call ML out like that. They will put themselves in more jeopardy legally by giving you the hackers name. You should know this. Chalk it up to inexperience, I guess.
Jonathan:
I am the General Counsel of MarketLeverage’s parent company, PrecisionPlay Media. In light of your post and some of the responses, I thought it was important to post a preliminary response. We are conducting a thorough investigation and will report back to you once it is completed, based on the facts that we can discover and verify.
Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Frank Ioppolo. I joined PrecisionPlay Media and MarketLeverage as their General Counsel and Vice President of Business Development in March of 2008. For the 17 years before that I was a partner at Greenberg Traurig, one of the largest law firms in the world. Over that time period I’ve represented start ups, small and large private and public companies as well as governments and trade organizations. I joined PrecisionPlay Media and MarketLeverage, clients of mine while I was at Greenberg, because of the terrific business opportunity it represents, as well as the high level of professionalism and integrity of those people in the company. (MarketLeverage grew over 5,600% between 2004 and 2007.) In addition to myself, we have another attorney, and together with the three industry professionals, we have a group of five people focused on compliance. This is in addition to our relationships with companies like Lashback and UnsubCentral on the technology side. All of these resources are focused on protecting our customers (advertisers and publishers) and making sure they have a safe and honest environment in which to conduct business. That is our company’s goal and my responsibility in particular.
Let’s start with the obvious. MarketLeverage does not protect hackers. What MarketLeverage does do is conduct its business and hold itself to the highest standards in the industry. This means acting responsibly, investigating complaints thoroughly, and vigorously protecting the confidential personal information of those who do business with us. Just like Yahoo, AOL and other reputable companies that do business on the internet, MarketLeverage does not turn over private information unless it is ordered to by a court. Privacy has been the cornerstone of internet activity from the beginning. Just look at this blog; other than Debby Phillips (a MarketLeverage employee) and I, no other person discloses their name and identity in their blog posts.
We take all allegations of improper conduct affecting our network very seriously. We investigate any allegations of improper conduct to determine the facts before taking action. The investigation process includes reviewing technology tools or records, as well as attempting to actually speak to the accused person or business. Based on the facts we can verify, we take the appropriate action which can include terminating our business relationship and banning them from the MarketLeverage network.
Jonathan, we welcome your feedback on this matter and appreciate your acknowledgement that the MarketLeverage team has been “very responsive”. However, I believe that we can do better and have modified our procedures to be even more responsive to this type of situation in the future. We are following up on this now and will get back to you as soon as we can. I know Dina has tried to reach you by telephone and AIM over the last day or two but has not yet spoken to you personally. I invite you to call me directly, my phone number is 407-320-7229 and my email address is fioppolo@marketleverage.com. I’d also be happy to make my technology team available to help you in making your websites more secure.
Regards,
Frank S. Ioppolo, Jr.
General Counsel & VP of Business Development
PrecisionPlay Media, Inc.
“This means acting responsibly, investigating complaints thoroughly, and vigorously”
*If you blog about it.
Just sayin…
That ML sucked was already a fact. They use DT. And all networks using DT simply… suck.
Honestly, I’m in shock man… ML has been nothing but helpful in all aspects but then again, I haven’t been in a situation of being hacked into… yet.
I guess we’ll see what the results are when you find out.
Jay
Market leverage is a reputed company,
I think they will resolve the complete problem very soon.
That hacker should be caught.
Any update on this jonathan ?
was you friend hacked by the same hacker?? Its funny that these ML retards want to help you to make your site secure rather than banning the hacker on there network. lmao.
WOW!
I was going to join but I think I’ll pass.
Thanks for the warning.
I am sure ML will work things out and sometimes these issues do take time. ML is a reputable company and the best thing to do is to make sure your sites are secure and to continue to work with ML to provide them with information that will help there internal investigation. I thought it was good for them to respond to your blog and address the issue – they could have ignored you and your post but clearly they are on top of it.
Haven’t talked to you for a while, any updates?
Jay
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Did i miss something, or are you seriously bitching at ML because your own friend got his site hacked? Wow. I thought the internet was dumb before. Way to blame the gun manufactorer for the murder.
Totally ignorant to think you are entitled to a person’s personal information in this case. If they did give you the name from the first contact, well anyone could contact them with the same story and get names on any publisher they wanted. Privacy is there for a reason, and it sounds like they’ve changed policies and contacted you several times to resolve the issue via phone and this blog, which is what i would call BENDING OVER ASS BACKWARDS.
I make 3 grand a month from ML and their account managers call me just about every month, for no reason, just asking if there’s anything they can do to help. Their payouts are the highest i’ve been able to find for many offers too, so anyone not using them because of this post is just a fool in my opinion.