Frightening Times at MarketWave

Sometime during the middle of the night, about a month ago, someone – or something – mutilated my MarketWave website beyond recognition. They, or it, crudely amputated the site’s SQL database files, then cruelly left it in a zombie-like state both blind, and with no ability to communicate. It now waits, alive but in a semi-comatose state, for an SQL specialist to perform a transplant. And then, the plastic surgeons will… well, do the best they can do.

And MarketWaveInc.com was one of the lucky ones.

This story begins the morning of October 4th. I awoke to find the aftermath of the slaughter graphically displayed on the screen of my Mac. Only the top sliver of the home page was visible. Then, when my site called out for it’s MySQL file, there was only silence. When I witnessed all the inky blackness below the mangled, deformed remains of my main menu I knew this was no mere, momentary glitch. With dreaded trepidation I slowly inched my sweaty mouse across its pad, and asked my site to try and tell me, if it could, what had happened. It responded, “Oh my God! My SQL files are gone! They’ve been ripped out! All my data… gone!” Well, actually it said “Specified SQL server not found”, which is kind of the same.

I immediately called the tech support version of 911 (my web host’s cell phone) only to hear an even more terrifying sound: “This number is no longer in service”. I emailed him, and what I got back was something so vile, so horrifying, I can barely type it’s description.

“Mail System Error 5.1.1 – The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.”

My web host, Nevada Racks, was a one man operation, and now that one man, Chris Lund, was missing. He had vanished, leaving no trace of his destination – or who had taken him. I was helpless to assist my suffering website. Then I remembered an email I received from Chris back in July informing me he was migrating all of his clients to another hosting company called RackSpace, and they could also offer me support. I even found an introduction email from a RackSpace “Account Manager” welcoming me to RackSpace, and offering their “full support”. There was still hope.

I called RackSpace and was subjected to yet another hideous sound: “You’re not our client. We can’t help you. Call Nevada Racks.”

I began frantically Googling, desperately trying to discover the whereabouts of Mr. Lund. Where did he go? Why did he flee? Who, or what, was he running from? And — did he make it?

It didn’t take long.

I discovered Chris had set up an allegedly fraudulent celebrity booking scheme and had made the dire mistake of accepting a $165,000 payment from a monstrously bad choice of victim – the co-founder of Amazon.com – as a 50% down payment towards the booking of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to perform at his wedding (seriously – I’m not making this up). Chris didn’t actually know Mr. Petty, nor was in any position to book him. He fled, but he didn’t make it far. Well, from Las Vegas to Illinois, so pretty far. But not far enough. The FBI arrested him on August 2nd. He now rests in a Washington state detention center awaiting his fate.

Here’s all the gory details: http://tinyurl.com/gorydetails

After almost a month of investigation I’ve determined that some mysterious person, unknown to Mr. Lund or anyone else, logged into his Nevada Racks admin control and viciously murdered 19 of his 25 client’s websites, and badly injured one – mine. It’s unknown as to why the others were spared, or what might have been the motive. The killings were senseless in that those targeted were random, unassociated clients having no other connection to Mr. Lund, and the site that he used for his celebrity booking business was one of the survivors!

Alas, simply transporting my site to a safer home, such as GoDaddy (which I’ve done), does not heal the damage caused by an eviscerated SQL database. My site was born with a now rare form of database called MSSQL, and it needs to regenerate a MySQL database to survive. And even then, it will suffer from almost complete amnesia. It won’t remember any of my past customers, all the responses from the last 550 survey takers, the scores of the last 100 or so MLM-IQ test takers (about 98 of which won’t mind that at all), and worst of all, all the votes for the 2012 Favorite Company contest.

Those of you who have an exclusive contact listing within the Favorite Company Vote list will all receive a free listing for what ever amount of time the site was down (at least one month).

Back ups of all files were suppose to occur nightly. I’ve discovered the sickening truth that this has not been so. I did occasionally perform my own manual back up but, much to my torment, the last one was in November of 2011.

I can perform surgery on my own website to an extent, but when it comes to SQL databases I’m way over my head. I’ve gotten the assurance from two web developers that they will help resurrect MarketWave, and then both also disappeared. I went to eLance and invited 13 (no kidding) different local freelance web developers who have SQL experience to accept the on-the-clock, cash paying job of bringing my site back to life, and all 13 have utterly ignored the invitation. Why did they even list themselves!?

So now I’m reaching out to you. Although I do appreciate this may be an ominous request, since everyone associated with my site’s recurrence seem to disappear.

I’ve actually decided to go with a whole new WordPress website, which will focus much more on video and audio blogging related to industry events and commentary, with a discussion forum. However, even this site accesses several pages from the MarketWaveInc.com site. So if anyone knows anything about MySQL, or knows anyone who does, I’m in desperate need of rescue. It can be on-the-clock, or in trade for a premium placed banner ad (vendors only, no M.L.M. companies), or you can assist pro bono (which I think is Latin for schmuck).

So there you have it. I’m reaching my ectoplasm drenched hand from beyond the grave, asking for someone to pull me back from the other side. Email me at MWave1@cox.net if you can help.

Happy Halloween. Be safe.

Len Clements
Founder & CEO
MarketWave, Inc.