Call of Duty 4 - PS3 issue

Picked up COD4 and played online for a few hours last night...made it up to rank 9 in a couple hours. Turned it on this morning to play a little more and whats this?!?! My multiplayer ranks GONE!! Played it again, got to rank 3, turned the system off and sure enough again, my rank was gone!! I searched online and found lots of people whining and complaining about this issue, but cant find a solution to fix it....sounds like its an issue with updating the PS3's firmware. Anyone have any ideas how to fix this??