PropFirmMatch’s New Statement, Fact-Checked Line by Line

Disclosure: Prop Radar is a prop firm comparison site, which makes us a competitor of PropFirmMatch. That’s exactly why everything below is built on things you can check yourself: PFM’s own words, its archived code, and public posts from the firms involved.

On 3 November 2026, PropFirmMatch posted a new update about the affiliate redirect that blew up last week. It opens by saying “many claims have been shared… before the full facts were available,” and promises to “set the record straight.”

Cool. Let’s do that.

We went through every line of the statement, compared it with PFM’s archived JavaScript, and read the replies. Short version: almost every bullet point is technically true, and almost none of them answer what people actually asked.

Quick Recap: What PFM’s Code Actually Did

If you missed last week, here’s the thing in plain English.

On PFM, when you clicked a firm’s name or the “Copy Code” button, the page you wanted opened in a new tab. Meanwhile, the tab you just left was quietly sent to the prop firm’s website through PFM’s affiliate link. You never clicked an affiliate link. You were looking at the other tab, so you didn’t notice.

And it only fired once per firm, per browser, per day. So if you clicked twice to test it, nothing happened the second time.

That’s not our description. It’s in the code. Copies saved by the Internet Archive show a function called useAffiliateRedirect, a list stored in your browser called affiliate_redirects, and this exact sequence:

window.open(w.toString(),”_blank”),window.location.href=v

Open the new tab. Send the old tab to the affiliate link. We opened the archived files ourselves and confirmed it in versions from 30 November 2025 and 3 September 2026. In the copy saved on 30 October 2026, a few hours after trader Kane posted his video, the redirect is switched off.

That’s roughly 11 months of it running. And according to analysis of the archived files, it was wired into PFM’s internal firm links from April 2026, not just the copy-code button. Somebody expanded it.

Bullet by Bullet: What PFM Said vs What It Means

PFM’s statement lists six findings from its “technical review to date.” Here’s each one, and what it leaves out.

“It did not operate without a user-initiated click.”

True. You did click something. You clicked “Copy Code.” Or a firm’s name.

What you didn’t click was an affiliate link. That’s the whole point. Every affiliate program draws the line at the click on the tracking link itself, and PFM’s own affiliate terms do too. They ban “forced affiliate cookies” for anyone promoting PFM. A click on a copy-code button that secretly fires an affiliate link in another tab is about as forced as it gets.

Trader Kimmel put it simply in the replies: just clicking the name of a prop firm opened the affiliate link, and the real allegation is that it replaced the cookie already there. That part isn’t addressed anywhere in the statement.

“It opened only the affiliate link of the firm selected by the trader.”

Read that as a defense for a second. It’s actually the feature.

If you’re on a firm’s page or copying its code, you’re probably about to buy from that firm. Firing that firm’s affiliate link at that exact moment is how you put your cookie in front of a buyer. Opening random firms’ links would be pointless. Opening the one you’re researching is what made it work.

And “selected” is doing a lot of work here. You selected the firm to read about it, not to be referred by PFM.

“It did not involve hidden iframes or invisible pixels.”

Nobody said it did.

The archived code shows a tab swap, not an iframe. This bullet denies an accusation nobody made. And here’s the funny part: PFM’s affiliate terms forbid “hidden iframe redirects, forced affiliate cookies, etc.” The statement denies the first half of that sentence and stays quiet on the second.

“It operated within PFM’s own website code and was not deployed on partner websites or through PFM badges or widgets.”

Again, nobody claimed it was on partner websites. The whole issue is PFM’s own website. This bullet confirms where it ran: on propfirmmatch.com, the site traders trust to compare firms.

“It did not change the prices traders paid or discounts they received.”

Correct, and nobody argued otherwise. Traders paid the same price.

The people who lost out weren’t traders. They were the creators, educators and smaller affiliates whose referrals got overwritten, and the prop firms who paid commissions for referrals that, as Vest put it publicly, “undeniably include siphoning commissions from others.”

“If a trader later clicked another affiliate’s link… the sale would be credited to the last click or code used.”

This is the one that should have stayed in drafts.

Most affiliate programs pay whoever’s link was clicked last. PFM is saying: relax, if someone clicked another affiliate after us, they got the sale.

But think about the order things actually happen in.

1. A trader watches a YouTuber’s video and clicks the YouTuber’s link. The YouTuber’s cookie is set. They came first.
2. Before buying, the trader goes to PFM to compare prices and clicks “Copy Code.”
3. PFM’s redirect fires and sets PFM’s cookie on top. PFM is now last.
4. The trader buys. Last click wins. PFM gets paid.

PFM only talked about affiliates who came after it. The problem was always the ones who came before. “Last click wins” isn’t a defense. It’s the exact reason the redirect worked.

Tom (@T3metrics) summed up the reaction in one line: “That’s not how almost ANY affiliate program works.”

The “Low Single-Digit Percentage” Line, Explained

PFM says its “early, modelled estimate” puts the impact at “a low single-digit percentage of the commissions Prop Firm Match earned.”

Notice what that’s measured against: PFM’s commissions. Not the creators’ losses.

Here’s a hypothetical to show why that matters. Say PFM earned $1 million in commissions in a year and the affected share was 3%. That’s $30,000 that may have belonged to other people. Spread across a handful of small creators, that could be most of what some of them made from those firms.

For scale: Goat Funded Trader said its PFM commissions for a single month came to $20,000. That’s one firm, one month. PFM had affiliate links for dozens of firms.

Also, it’s “modelled.” Not measured. And “preliminary.” PFM still hasn’t said how many traders the redirect fired for, how many sales were affected, or how much money moved.

What the Statement Doesn’t Say at All

Six bullet points, and here’s what’s missing from every one of them:

• When it started. The archive shows it live from November 2025. The statement only says when it was turned off.
• Why it fired only once per firm, per day. That’s the detail that made it nearly impossible to catch. It’s not something you add by accident.
• Why it was expanded in April 2026 to internal firm links.
• Who built it, and who approved it.
• Why it fired even when users declined cookies. A comparison-site writer reported testing it in a private window after clicking “Decline” on PFM’s cookie banner. The redirect still fired.
• Any apology to creators. Or any refund plan. As one reply put it: “The most interesting part is that you guys aren’t still talking about refunds.”
• The rankings. Topstep’s founder said publicly that Topstep paid PFM $10,000 a month to be listed and never ranked above sixth. PFM’s transparency policy says commercial agreements don’t decide rankings or listings. Those two things need explaining, and the statement doesn’t try.

“Before the Full Facts Were Available”? They Knew in August

PFM opens by suggesting people jumped to conclusions “before the full facts were available.”

Here’s the timeline it skips:

• November 2025: the redirect appears in PFM’s archived code.
• April 2026: it’s extended to internal firm links.
• August 2026: FundingPips CEO Khaled says FundingPips caught the cookie practices and took action.
• 27 October 2026: a trader reports being asked to review PFM on her payout screen despite never using PFM’s code.
• 29 October 2026: trader Kane posts the screen recording.
• Within hours: the redirect is switched off.

If a partner flagged it in August, the facts were available to PFM months before they were available to anyone else. It came off a few hours after a video went public.

The account @PropFirmDrama said it bluntly under the statement: FundingPips told them months ago, and nothing changed for the other firms.

How the Industry Responded

The firms didn’t wait for PFM’s review. They checked their own data.

Within roughly a day of the video, at least twelve prop firms publicly ended affiliate deals or paid listings with PFM: Apex Trader Funding, Lucid Trading, Take Profit Trader, FundingPips, Vest, Blue Guardian, Alpha Capital Group, Goat Funded Trader, BrightFunded, Tradeify, Topstep and FXIFY.

Tradeify said PFM “broke our affiliate terms.” Vest said it had “confirmation of cookie stuffing.” Several firms are redirecting PFM’s commissions back to traders as prize pools.

Meanwhile, PFM’s Trustpilot page currently shows a warning that its rating is unavailable due to a breach of Trustpilot’s guidelines, with a note that fake reviews were removed. Trustpilot doesn’t say who wrote them.

And PFM’s statement ends with: “Prop Firm Match continues to operate as normal.”

Yeah. That’s kind of the problem.

What PFM Should Have Posted Instead

An actual “set the record straight” post would have been short:

1. The redirect went live on [date] and ran until 29 October.
2. It fired [X] times and touched [Y] purchases.
3. It was designed to fire once per day because [reason].
4. Here’s how we’ll pay back the affiliates whose referrals were overwritten.
5. Here’s how our rankings work, and what paid listings do and don’t buy.

Five lines. Real numbers. No need to deny accusations nobody made.

Instead we got six carefully worded bullets that survive a lawyer’s read and fail a trader’s. Every one is technically true. Together they avoid the only questions that matter.

Check It Yourself

Don’t take our word for it. That’s the whole point of this post.

• PFM’s statement (3 November 2026): x.com/PropFirmMatch/status/2117383581467054511
• The archived code, live (3 September 2026): open the file and press Ctrl+F for window.location.href=v
• The archived code, switched off (30 October 2026): open the file and search for keepCurrentTab:n}=e;return!1
• Full archive breakdown (Alex Firdaus): alexfirdaus.com/propfirmmatch-cookie-stuffing
• Kane’s original video: x.com/traderkane/status/2115904959401140641
• Topstep’s founder on the $10K/month listing: x.com/MichaelPatak/status/2116208980976652644
• The decline-cookies test and the payout-screen prompt (Minx): x.com/iamJMinx/status/2116253046736900525
• Industry coverage: Finance Magnates, FinanceFeeds, Affiverse

If PFM publishes real numbers, we’ll update this post. Until then, the code is still on the archive, and it hasn’t changed its story once.