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vdbucks
Former Member
Message 1 of 15

All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

Let this serve as a first notice that if this issue is not resolved without us being blackmailed into buying one of your services, we will file a lawsuit for defamation of character and libel.

Yesterday, we learned that all of our sites are either yellow or red flagged by siteadvisor. These sites are flagged yet no scans of the sites ever took place, and there is no information as to why they were flagged.

We called their "Tech Support" yesterday and after a dozen failed calls, getting put on hold several times and then hung up on, we finally got through and were told that our sites are flagged because we did not register them with siteadvisor. We consider this blackmail because we should not be forced into registering our sites/domains with your services just so they won't get flagged. No other security scan type site does this. Not AVG, not Norton, not spamhaus, not google, nor any of the other sites we scanned our sites on; all of which return green by the way. After which time we were put on hold again, and again hung up on.

We called again today and as above, it took us nearly an hour to reach a live person to address our concerns, and are now being told that in order to have our sites removed from the blacklist they - McAfee - would have to remote desktop into the customers computers to see what caused the false flags. However, there is no way for them - McAfee - to know which customers raised the false flag. Then we were told that it is not possible for them to scan our sites and as such there is nothing we can do to have our sites removed from this blacklist. We then asked for a supervisor, a legal representative and a manager - all of which were refused - before being put on hold and eventually hung up on again.

Being unsatisfied with this answer, we called again. And, as twice above, it took us nearly an hour to get through to a live human and immediately asked to speak to a supervisor. They connected us to someone who claimed to be a supervisor who placed us on hold and hung up on us once again.

We called again for a third time today and were told that if a site is unavailable at the time of a scan, then they would automatically be flagged. I suppose this could be a valid reason - due to an increased amount of DDoS attacks on our network over the past few days - except for the fact that it's quite clear our sites haven't been scanned in years. I say this because the 'online affiliation' for our sites are horribly outdated. So I highly doubt our sites were flagged for this reason.

Then out of the blue, someone from McAfee called us back and explained that our sites were flagged because they are not registered with McAfee. This person also tried to sell us into buying "HackerSafe" in order to keep our sites from being blacklisted. As above, this is blackmail.

I should also note that we sent an email yesterday regarding this issue and have yet to receive a response from McAfee.

Listed below are the links to our sites that are currently blacklisted - which is actually all of our sites - with either a yellow or red stauts. And as stated above, there is zero information whatsoever as to why.

I should note that yes, our sites are in the adult entertainment industry, but we handle zero customer billing or financial information ourselves. All of our payment processing is done through reputable companies who are green listed in McAfee.

These payment processors are as follows:

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/ccbill.com

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/zombaio.com

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/netbilling.com

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/epoch.com

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/verotel.com

Which as noted above are all green listed.

Our sites are as follows:

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/vdbucks.com - red flagged

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/trikepatrol.com - red flagged

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/filipinasexdiary.com - yellow flagged

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/tuktukpatrol.com - yellow flagged

As I stated in the opening of this thread, this issue needs to be handled immediately, and our sites need to have their status' changed since you have not and cannot show any proof as to why they were blacklisted.

Thank you.

14 Replies
exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 2 of 15

Re: All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

Threatening legal action is hardly conducive to the volunteers here wanting to help you.   I'm not sure who you called but the regular support channels don't normally deal with SiteAdvisor Rating issues so no doubt were only reading from scripts that they have to follow.

You can contact SiteAdvisor directly at support@siteadvisor.com or, which in this case appears more likely to get results, if you want to address an issue with a website rating in SiteAdvisor that is based on McAfee's TrustedSource Web Reputation, please go to TrustedSource Feedback and use the web form to contact the TrustedSource team.

If you want to track your requests or be notified via email, you can register for a free TrustedSource.org account.

There are some more options listed in a sticky at the top of this section here:  https://community.mcafee.com/message/68874#68874

Meanwhile, SiteAdvisor staff do drop in here from time to time so hopefully some other suggestions will be forthcoming.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 29/11/12 12:55:29 EST PM
Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 3 of 15

Re: All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

The SiteAdvisor ratings are coming from TrustedSource. Sucuri gives all four the all-clear except for the SiteAdvisor rating on each.

The poster is advised to contact TrustedSource and ask for an explanation using the information in the document whose link was provided above.

No other information is available from the TrustedSource site at this time so I can't suggest a reason for the rating.

Peacekeeper
Message 4 of 15

Re: All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

Also if things do not get moving we can pass this up the line to contacts we know BUT you have to email the SA support area and trusted source first to give them the chance of sorting this out.

vdbucks
Former Member
Message 5 of 15

Re: All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

So it's more of the runaround... Our sites are blacklisted for this reason... no, that reason... or maybe it's the other reason... wait, no they're not blacklisted by siteadvisor, they're blocked by trustedsource. Fill out this form, no send to that email, go over there and try to fill out another form or send another email...

Guess what, siteadvisor, trustedsource, or whatever someone will say next shouldn't matter because they're all owned by the same company. I can't believe a supposedly reputable company makes it so difficult to get false blacklisting issues resolved. Perhaps if the system were actually more reliable... but wait, I can't even find out who we really need to deal with to get this issue sorted, or why and by whom our sites were blacklisted to begin with so why should I expect a reliable system?

I really wonder how a company such as this became a "trusted" entity on the internet where honest companies like us who do nothing wrong get falsely blacklisted with no information as to why; and then are given the runaround when they try to resolve the issue created by your company.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 6 of 15

Re: All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

There could be lots of reasons why this happens, your web host had a dicey reputation in the past, your IP's were on a blacklist at some stage (maybe they didn't always belong to you), the domain name(s) were misused in the past by someone else (again, they didn't always belong to you)....we have no idea about all that here.   If you're not prepared to do do what we are advising you to do then you'll just have to wait and see what happens.

It goes both ways you know, SiteAdvisor and other similar browser add-ons (WoT etc.) are there to protect you as well as 'them'.   A bit of work is sometimes involved in getting them to accurately portray the situation.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 30/11/12 7:19:45 EST AM
vdbucks
Former Member
Message 7 of 15

Re: All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

We run self managed dedicated servers. None of our IPs have been blacklisted, not at present and not in the past... it's one thing we check for when setting up a new server with our host. Our host is green listed - http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/limestonenetworks.com

So we're still as far today as we were 3 days ago in finding anything out and getting answers or this issue resolved.

As stated in my first post, I already emailed support@siteadvisor.com and I've also contacted TrustedSource... and have heard nothing back.

If you were in our shoes, how frustrated would you be? We're asking a very simple question here and so far all weve gotten is "maybe this" or "maybe that" or "buy this" and put on hold then hung up on numerous times.

Not to mention the fact that we've lost who knows how much money already because of this false flag nonsense that has clearly been in place and never rechecked/changed since 2010 on our 2 sites that are flagged red, and likely since the launch of the 2 yellow flagged domains. We only even learned about this siteadvisor nonsense 4 days ago when a pretty large partnership deal fell through because of this defamation.

But I digress, it's not your money so it's ok...

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 8 of 15

Re: All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

It's not OK and I do sympathize, but these things take time to sort out.   Let's hope something moves on this very soon.   I wish that TrustedSource pages were more explanatory as to why they decide to flag certain sites and not others but there's nothing I can do about that unfortunately.

vdbucks
Former Member
Message 9 of 15

Re: All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

Since you locked the other thread, I'll reply here...

Ex_Brit wrote:

It's the accusations of it being ignored that are rubbish.  Things take time.  You can't expect an instant response.   If you feel things are taking too long voice your concern to Customer Service.  We can't do anything here as this is simply a peer-to-peer support spot.

If a technician drops in here we are lucky.

A bad rating is not defamation.  There's a reason for it and eventually they should let you know what it is/was and rectify it or tell you how to do that.

Sorry but it's the way you started out here threatening a lawsuit in the very first line of your original thread that puts everyone here on the cautious side.

We would be far more understanding that these matters take time had it not been for the fact that we were hung up on several times, and have been given the runaround or outright ignored on every contact attempt we have tried. And again, we've called them numerous times and have been placed on hold, then hung up on every single time.

A bad 'rating' is indeed defamation when said bad 'rating' is completely untrue. There exists no evidence, proof or any information whatsoever as to why our sites were blacklisted; and this is, by definition, defamation/libel/slander. Not to mention, this is far more than a 'bad rating'. When visitors who have this siteadvisor junk installed in their browsers, they are warned to NOT visit our site because "McAfee TrustedSource web reputation analysis found potential security risks with this site. Use with extreme caution.". So they are costing us traffic, revenue and now business deals because of this nonsense. And then have so far refused to even give a real answer as to why they were blackliste to begin with...

For the record, it wasn't a threat. It was a notification to show how serious we are to have this issue addressed. We'll be meeting with our lawyers on Monday to begin filing a class action defamation suit against McAfee if this issue has not been properly addressed by then.

Message was edited by: vdbucks on 11/30/12 2:29:59 PM CST
Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 10 of 15

Re: All of our sites are either yellow/red flagged and mcaffee tech support is giving us the run around.

You've contacted SiteAdvisor and TrustedSource, which was the right thing to do. They're sometimes a bit slow to respond, but respond they do. We here can't change your sites' ratings, and at the moment we can't get any further information about the reason for the ratings.

SiteAdvisor is the visible indicator of a site's current rating. A site owner has to register the site with SiteAdvisor to get it tested. The details on the SiteAdvisor site page for links, downloads and so on are determined at the time the site is first tested and so may be out of date after a while, at least until the site is re-tested. Re-testing is not, I think, automatic, so if you have a site it may be a good idea to have it re-checked periodically.

TrustedSource is a real-time system that picks up information from myriad sources and, if there is a negative impact on a website for whatever reason, changes the visible SiteAdvisor rating. TrustedSource has apparently detected something relating to each of these sites but I have no idea what that is. Only the internal teams can track down where the information feed came from and what it contained. So, you have to wait for them to investigate and report back.

Sometimes, if I do enough background research, I can find a third-party report on a site that sheds a little light on a rating change. Usually I'm willing to give up my evenings and weekends to do this for a site owner. In your case, I feel you've spoiled your chances slightly by opening your thread with a post containing words such as "blackmail", "lawsuit" and "libel". In such a case I feel somewhat constrained in what I am able to do.

You should note that Tech Support are not competent to deal with SiteAdvisor and/or TrustedSource matters. There are specialist divisions dealing with site ratings and with SiteAdvisor development, and these matters are not really part of the Tech Support remit.

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