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jcollake
Former Member
Message 1 of 34

Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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Since Pharmalert has made nearly 2 million site reviews, I think it is only fair we know his name. When he improperly made a 'review' on my site (didn't change its rating, thankfully), he later recanted with something just about as bad. Full details elsewhere. Here is simply request to know who HE or SHE is, so that we, as a community, can make sure HE is not one of the bad guys. I put myself 'all out there' on the table, hiding behind NO aliases. So... let's hear it. Don't make something up, please include mailing address. You can PM me if you want.

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tromine
McAfee Employee
McAfee Employee
Message 17 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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Jcollake-

Your frustration is completely understandable.  I am escalating to see if we can get this handled quick.

Product Manager, McAfee Consumer Software

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33 Replies
jcollake
Former Member
Message 2 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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BTW, see his great recanting of what was a false positive here: http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/bitsum.com/msgpage

Note that I used to have a bunch of GREEN user ratings too, but they were cleared out in what SiteAdvisor said was a database cleanup of some sort... who knows.

All I know is that to VERIFY that pharmalert is not working WITH SiteAdvisor, as he claims he is not, then we must know his real name .. period. Otherwise, it is a means to skirt the defamation laws. We are forced to lay out everything we are just to prove our innocence, so he should at least be forced to show who HE is if he is going to continue making this number of accusations (maybe 98% are correct, but maybe that last 2% are family killers).

Message was edited by: jcollake on 1/25/11 2:59:34 PM GMT-05:00
jcollake
Former Member
Message 3 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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Oh, to be clear, he made this specious accusation against BITSUM.COM within 36 hours of me saying NO to Mcafee Secure on their high priced certification, with no problems the prior two years. So, I think proof is needed here.... This person, making 2 million reviews since 2006, over 1000 a day, clearly has a lot of free time on his hands. He must make money some how. Perhaps some would say he teamed up with a McAfee Secure salesperson.. but I would not jump to that conclusion at all, because unlike SIteAdvisor I don't make specious accusations (as has already been admitted the case *twice*, through an 'accident').

Message was edited by: jcollake on 1/25/11 4:41:00 PM GMT-05:00
tromine
McAfee Employee
McAfee Employee
Message 4 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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jcollake,

I understand you feel you've been wronged by McAfee - as it pertains to the rating your site until recently had.  Let me state a couple things that I can tell you with no uncertainty:

  1. SiteAdvisor ratings are a science, not an art, and the system is automated.  When, as has apparently been the case with you, a site owner explains that they feel they've been wrongly categorized (yellow or red), the SiteAdvisor development team will further investigate the automated 'triggers' that caused the current rating to see if there is anything extenuating, which warrants a reclassification.  Due to your initial prodding via the forum, that has now happened, and I understand your site is green today. 
  2. There is no linkage, as you have claimed, to any company's willingness or desire to purchase a site certification - and the ranking they receive via SiteAdvisor.  These are two completely different teams within McAfee.  Nevertheless, I apologize if our Sales associate didn't handle your interaction professionally. 
  3. I'm familiar with PharmAlert as a volunteer who has submitted reviews of sites to SiteAdvisor for a few months.  I don't know his name or his email address, but it's easy to see his involvement on the Forum, and if you investigate through a search, you'll find he has had issues with the site upload mechanism that volunteers use to feed in their input to McAfee SiteAdvisor.  If he was employed by McAfee, you wouldn't see this kind issue. 

Bottom line:  I believe there was some coincidental bad timing that may have left you suspicious of McAfee's business practices.  All I can say is that this isn't the way we have, do or will treat our customers.  We may make mistakes now and then, but extortion isn't in our playbook.  If you want to discuss further with me, send a private message via the Forum.  And let me ask that you tame down the 'legal action' threats on the Forum.  We built the Forum to help folks get issues addressed, not to form litigation plans.

Product Manager, McAfee Consumer Software
jcollake
Former Member
Message 5 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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Well, he is an impressive typer! That's for sure. Wow, over 1000 reviews a day. They are surely accurate. No. He admits to using a database. He surely automates his text entry, therefore he is a BOT controlled by a HUMAN (who I have no doubt exists). The recant that insinuated we WERE infected and now CLAIM to not be infected is beyond insulting. Do not confuse that with the previous, correct, apology for a mistake years ago with lordpake (a good guy).


Now, I experienced first hand the high pressure sales of McAfee Secure. It was intense, like buying a car. They make an unsolicited call. If they think they have a biter, they escalate to the closer. And it costs thousands (price varied each time). My contact was the same each time. When I finally said NO, after years of no troubles or accidents, suddenly I'm on pharmalert's 'list'. Hmm.. strange timing. It may be a coincidence, and likely is. I want to believe that. However, this man surely supports himself somehow. Is it not plausible that he and a McAfee Secure salesperson teamed up? Some might think that. I would certainly hope NOT!

I appreciate ALL you volunteers. But corporate McAfee is something different. They care only about profits, self-protection, and share value. Now a division of Intel, let's hope they clean up SIteAdvisor -- as this is the ONLY rating service I've EVER had trouble with. And to this day nobody can explain why ProcessLasso.com was rated RED (pharamalert reviewed BITSUM.COM, but I believe I was already on the white list). ProcessLasso.com had NO RED (not even 1 nuisannce factor) FILES, NO RED REVIEWS (only a green from a 9/9 reviewer), and NO RED LINKS -- Yet it went RED about this too.

You tell me. But, volunteers, please do stay around to clean up McAfee's huge messes.

Message was edited by: jcollake on 1/25/11 5:00:30 PM GMT-05:00
exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 6 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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Pharmalert is addressing you on your other thread https://community.mcafee.com/thread/32120?tstart=0 so I trust this issue will at last be sorted out.

You must understand that we have to respect the privacy of all members and can't provide personal details of any forum member to any members of the public for any reason.

jcollake
Former Member
Message 7 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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I agree for any normal person, and even in this case now that I have spoken to him. The quantity of posts was the concern, making him appear more like an algorithm operating on the database instead of a human actually reviewing sites. I was going to let this just settle to the bottom as we sort it out in the other thread .

BOTH PARTIES have agreed to have BOTH the first improper RED comment and then the recant GREEN comment removed, so we'll see if McAfee does it. I fear they won't, which is ironic since they deleted all my other GREEN user reviews (yes, I know supposedly part of some cleanup).

So, to McAfee - do the right thing - do what BOTH of us request (pharmalert and myself) and make everyone happy. Correct a mistake, fix your OWN reputation. Then I can go onto the world and say 'McAfee treated the situation fairly and deleted both comments', instead of 'McAfee refuses to remove some comments, but strangely deletes other comments at random'. The story could go either way. I believe in THIS CASE, an exception should be made to any normal rules.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 8 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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I'm sure it'll be sorted out.  It's all beyond me I'm afraid.

jcollake
Former Member
Message 9 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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Beyond us all I'm afraid. Even McAfee employees maybe. The previous employee I messaged, and he acknowledged and liked this simple solution. He said he had to verify it with policy though, and I've not heard back... leaving me to worry. Probably their darn lawyers are all involved now, mucking things up and making a simple thing complicated.


It isn't complicated though. It is simple. Some changes need made here at SiteAdvisor, IMHO. I believe the majority of your own supporters would agree on certain changes. For instance:

  • Hire more employees to cut down review time for false positives, as 10 days is DEATH to a business. By then they've been de-linked everywhere and you've destroyed their reputation. You have the money, especially now -- so there is NO EXCUSE for a 10 day period. That is simply absurd in this day and age. EVERY other security company I've ever dealt with has fixed false positives usually in less than 24 hours. They have been remarkably responsive. I wish I could say the same for you.
  • Hire more employees to answer emails. An automated email, then a response a week later isn't cool.. again, by then the damage is done.
  • I am not sure the real reason for the 4 week delay on Yahoo updates, but that needs fixed -- that's absurd too. If it is on their end, then this is their problem. If on your end, then your problem.
  • Allow reviewers to remove their own reviews if both parties are in agreement AND the cause was a mistake or misunderstanding.
  • Rely MORE on user reviews, which tend to be more accurate, despite the potential for abuse. These help protect against scammy sites too, not just malware sites. You can implement safeguards and catch any cases of abuse, I'm sure. Other sites are doing a much better job of rating web sites, I must say.. IMHO.
  • Attempt to contact the site owner of any site you rate YELLOW or RED, so they know the rating has changed. Otherwise, some businesses may go out of business before even realizing a mistake at SiteAdvisor caused their sales to suddenly drop months ago.
  • Quit being so corporate. Nobody likes that crap. Be accessible. Be friendly. Be responsive. Be nice. Assume innocent until PROVEN guilty, not the other way around.

Just my two cents. These rules also protect YOU, as they make it less likely you accidentally kill off somebody's legit family business (like mine).

I know these malware people are tricky, but they aren't that tricky... For me, it is usually pretty obvious within 10 minutes of investigation whether a site is legit or not.

jcollake
Former Member
Message 10 of 34

Re: Demand to know the real name of pharmalert

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My GOD!!!! They did it a THIRD TIME!!! It was only a month ago we went through this. I had removed my criticisms, largely... but apparently I should have kept them all up. This is nuts. Someone in that company has it out for me. I run the most legitimate company a person could freaking run!!

ALL GREEN DOWNLOADS

ALL GREEN LINKS
NO COMMENTS

= RED SITE ?!?!? -- TWICE NOW IN A MONTH!!!


See: http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/prolasso.com

I am so angry and hurt I can't even see. I mean, I build a business for a decade with hard work and McAfee SiteAdvisor comes in and destroys it, without even giving a cause? And with their install base, reported to be 350 million+ (more now that they include McAfee with SUN Java updates probably), they literally can kill whomever they want. I can't even get a month's work in without having to go in a rage again, just to stay in business because of some prick rating at that company rating my domain RED. My adrenaline.. whew.. Gosh..  If only you knew what this does to sales (kills them).

Message was edited by: jcollake on 2/25/11 3:43:00 PM GMT-05:00
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