So I haven't received any assignments since March of this year and I'm really starting to worry something is wrong. My last assignment was just a decent White LED AF140 case fan. I normally wouldn't have accepted it, but since it was the first I've heard from them in a while, I did. I posted the review within a couple weeks, as I usually do.
Now since I hadn't heard ANYTHING from them since, I recently sent emails just asking if the program is still in effect and that of course I am still in it. No response, which is VERY rare for them. I've emailed them quite a few times about issues with shipments and such, and I ALWAYS heard back promptly. Now I've sent three emails, two of which are worded exactly the same and still haven't received anything back. I assure you, I have not spammed them so I can't see that they'd be just pissed about it or whatever.
This morning I decided to look deeper into the who's managing the program and I found an email address that allows one to "request" to join the program, which they will then check out your reviews and give you an answer. This wasn't the case back when I first joined... You could only get in by invitation and that only happened if they noticed you. It's still only by invitation, but at least now a person can try and make themselves known. Anyway, I setn my email to this address hoping they can give me some insight into my own account.
One reason I'm so concerned is because back in October of last year, I was targeted and hacked by someone with some serious skills. It could have been more than one person, I'm not even sure. All I'm sure of is their exploit kit and custom malware was so advanced that I've really become paranoid about having proper end-point protection and other "next-gen" security software. This "file-less" malware mainly used PowerShell to do it's nasty things on my system, which included deleting some sysinternals tools and forensic data recovery tools completely from my PC. I had good malware protection installed but it didn't stand a chance against such a sophisticated attack. They were even able to load a hacked FW onto my wireless router I was using at the time, which is an Archer C8 802.11ac rev1 model. I realized it was hacked when the LED's on the front wouldn't stay on and wi-fi wouldn't disable. The logs showed nothing useful anymore as well. I can't get into it all but I'm absolutely positive the router was compromised, then hacked with a malicious FW that looked legit when logged into it but certainly was not. Their malware spread into my primary PC, my smartphone, and my secondary PC. It took me weeks to rebuild my network, completely re-flash all five parts of my Galaxy Note 8's firmware, and then make sure I was not getting reinfected afterwards. I added a new router with better security options and I also use group policy to set strict rules. I can't do much about Powershell, because even if you set a noexecution policy the script writer can just disable that with one command.
When I informed Newegg that I had been hacked, but regained control of all my online accounts and devices, they strangely asked me if I wanted to be removed from the EggXpert program because of it. I thought that was very weird and told them "of course not!" I only wanted to let them know in case someone tried impersonating me to get one of my review samples. I know they got into my primary email account and knew my VIP's, which Newegg is on. I was just being careful, but couldn't believe they asked me that question. I did receive a reply stating they wouldn't remove me then and I've had that one assignment ever since.
I just hope I get an email soon. I miss reviewing products!