This is the conversation i had with Activision about the loss of stats in Black Ops.

Me:
My rank 50 & Prestige 14 have been reset to 0 in Black Ops 1 Multiplayer, please help. Player name : Mr Krinkle*BK* This is the only game i play

Activision:
We would like to ask for some information regarding the issue with your stats being reset. Please provide us the following information.
1. What's your PSN ID, Xbox Gamertag or Steam ID? Please provide us a link to your Steam profile if you're using Steam.
2. How was the account reset?
3. Did you get any error message when you logged in?
4. Did you report the player who may have caused the rank reset?

Me:
Thanks Ronald.
1.It is a Steam account *********
2.was reset when i logged out to change a tac' nade in my kit.
3. yes, something like "your rank has been reset to the most current backup lvl1"
4. i didn't know that was even possible.
hope this helps
oh btw, it happened on Friday the 18th in the evening.

Activision:
If your rank and stats have become altered or modified outside of normal game mechanics, the Call of Duty servers will attempt to restore them using the most recently stored backup. This means that your rank and stats may not be exactly where they were before the reset occurred. Furthermore, sadly we just do not have way to restore stats on our end.
However, here are some practices to protect your rank and stats:

-Always play public matches over a wired connection.
-Always complete public matches.
-Never play on a shared connection.
-Only play private matches with players you know and trust.

Me:
Well i must say that's a pretty poor effort. I certainly hope this problem will not carry on into other games like CoD WWII because you will get allot of dedicated players very upset..
you really need to fix this.

It actually happened when i tried to reenter the match after i changed to a different tac' nade (the game was still running). Even now it is still not stable, at the start of every map it says "Fetching Stats" 3 or more times before i can choose a load out & also reset all progress back to the start of that lvl i was on e.g. lvl23. If you can't reinstate my lvl50 & Prestige 14, could you please at least boost me back to Prestige 14 lvl1, You can tell by my "Gold guns" i have made it at least that far.
Kind regards: MrKrinkle

Activision:
Thanks for the info and update. This will not happen with COD: WWII. This only happens with older COD titles. Due to the age of the game and their data, we can no longer restore stats especially to the older titles.

Thanks for sharing this to us though. We've taken note of this and will be using this as feedback for reference and as a report to work on preventing this from happening in the game. If in case you have other issues with the game, please let us know and we'll be happy to help. You can also contact our Chat Support option available daily from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM PST.


Me:
1. So what you're saying is that the almost 1.5yrs i spent leveling is gone?
2. But is it possible to restore my Prestige 14 at lvl 1? you can see by the screenshot i have the gold Camo' only available from P'14.
3. Unrelated: Will WWII have "Rent-able" controllable servers?

Activision:
I totally understand that you really wanted to restore that stats that you lost. However, as much as we want to, we don't have any means to restore it.  

For the WWII, you can just try to check it out in game since it's already live.   (Notice this does not answer my question about renting a server! so we are still in the dark).  

As you can see, i tried to push the issue  as much as i could because i really don't fancy doing it all again. So if all your stuff doesn't come back in a few days..... ya stuffed!

P.S. BK does not condone the use of a boost and members found to have done this can be banned from all servers & the Clan!. Just so you know..

"Thanks for sharing this to us though. We've taken note of this and will be using this as feedback for reference and as a report to work on preventing this from happening in the game. If in case you have other issues with the game, please let us know and we'll be happy to help. You can also contact our Chat Support option available daily from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM PST."  

Bunch of B.S.  They simply don't care about the game anymore.  They could easily restore you to your rank...and mine too, but they want us to move on and spend our money on other games.  Unfortunately, they have us by the (oO)'s.

thanks for the info

*****Update******
This is the final response i got back today from Activision in Face book..
And i quote:
I've heard back and unfortunately, due to hardware limitations of this legacy title, the studio will not be able to restore your stats. I know this is frustrating to hear and I wish I could help you further. If you have any future questions please hit us up. Thanks!

SO NOW IT"S HARDWARE related ????  total rubbish..

So I have had success by direct messaging https://twitter.com/pcdev and he will fix it for you, it might take some time and he might not respond, but it's worth just respectfully messaging the guy with your steam profile url and telling him your rank got reset.

awww

Thanks for that sterfried...thanks for the Intel, good to here you got your stuff back too.

I have created a Twitchy account thingy and have sent a message, i will post with updates..

Twitter not twitch I hope

But yeah, this was about 2 or 3 years ago, and it took a few weeks before it magically was fixed, so YMMV :/

Where is your Steam URL?  Profile page?

Yeah that's what I believe he asked for when he fixed it for me.

Mine is http://steamcommunity.com/id/sterfried/ but if you haven't customized the url it will look like http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198034337246/

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

I got a tweety the other day and WOOOOT i got my Prestige 14 back at my current level of progress 44 with all my gold guns too. My plan now is to level and Prestige asap.

My tweet read as follows:
pcdev_assist On 18-Aug my rank & Prestige 14 have been reset in Black Ops1 MP, please help. Player name : Mr Krinkle*BK*    
                             (note: i also sent my profile as sterfried suggested)
2nd tweeet:
pcdev_assist Gidday, haven't got back to me yet, so is it possible to restore my Blops rank etc ?? regards MrKrinkle
The reply:
Please check now,  you have been restored using the best available backup files.

So sign up to twitter and get it done people. GET IT DONE..

p.s. i claim this as a win for all players who have lost all their Prestige

I would also like to thank sterfried for his suggestion. THANKS Mate...  

I just got Twitter...hopefully "tweeted" correctly and we shall see.  I'll keep you updated if he fixes mine too!

yeah it took about 10 days or so..

They just tweeted me with the following:

For faster resolution, make sure that they (others players affected ) send their Steam profile URL that way we can look them up quicker.

Just relaying what worked for me, glad to hear they are still listening haha!

bump