Name: Banners Broker
Website url: www.bannersbroker.com
Price: Varies based on the level of package that you purchase
Owners: Chris Smith
Overall Rank: 0 out of 100 (SCAM)
Banners Broker: The “Scheme” Overview
The Banners Broker program was designed to help people grow their businesses via paid traffic to sites that feature specialized banner ads of various sizes and types. There are multiple problems with the program, including outright lies by the owners and the inability to freely join the program without ponying up money first.
In addition, the program itself is confusing and misleading to anyone that joins… if they are able to join.
The Pros vs. Cons
Pros:
- Banner ads are viewed by huge numbers of people making the premise a very viable and valuable one for most business owners.
- Program allows business owners to buy only the amount of traffic that they need.
- There are options to help push members to the next level without spending a lot of money to do so.
Cons:
- Several of the payment options that were offered by the program have been discontinued without warning.
- There are several credible reports that the program has not paid any owed commissions since December of 2012.
- Ownership of the program has changed with some claims that the new owner is just a “ghost” name for a person that does not really exist.
- The site itself claims that there are zero negative reports with the Better Business Bureau and that the current grade for the program is a B. In fact, there are six current claims filed with the BBB and the score is a F (even though I think BBB is a scam).
- The program itself is so hopelessly complex that most people will quit before they ever get to the point of earning any commissions at all.
- Red flag when a company cannot get merchant accounts with reputable companies like Paypal (usually indicates a pyramid style scam)
Want to Attain REAL Success Online? Go Here!
Is Banners Broker a Ponzi Scam? You be the Judge!
I am going to let you make the call on this one, but there are several independent groups out there that have classified Banners Broker as a Ponzi scam. Here is just one example of a Facebook group called “Banners Broker Ponzi Scam” that has over 11,826 members that have made the “vote” that yes through their Likes that Banners Broker is in fact a ponzi scam.
The fact that there are groups like this out there sets off immediate red flags for me. If this many people have apparently been ripped off by this program, how many more didn’t speak up after getting ripped off. I mean, that is enough people to fill the crowd at a Los Angeles Lakers game!
Let’s look at what a Ponzi is and then try to determine if what being offered at Banners Broker fits seamlessly into this classification:
The affiliates and paid reviewers for this program all swear that it is designed for the “average” person with little to no marketing experience at all but that is not reality. First, the program is very complex. To get started, you have to decide what level of traffic that you want to buy in the form of traffic hits. To move on to the next level of the program, you have to have a set number of traffic hits.
All of the sections of the program are divided by various colors. For instance, you must buy a yellow panel in the first section of the program. To move on, you must earn 5000 traffic hits. In addition, you can refer others to the program which will give you credit for traffic hits that you can use toward your next step.
Confused yet? Let’s look into this a little further.
The Different Aspects of the Banners Broker System
There are three different aspects of this program, the publish, the advertiser and the advertiser/publisher combo packages. I will explain these in more detail below.
A Publisher – Like any other publishing program like Adsense, you can sign-up for this program and put banner ads on your website and get paid based on impressions to your website. Unlike Adsense, there is very little quality control and you could be promoting scams right on your website…but chances are if you are involved in this program, you are running a scam to begin with.
An advertiser – When you start an advertiser account, they give you a free block of impressions to get rolling (1,000). This is to prove the quality of their program, however you need to understand that the folks on the other side of the business (the publishers) are getting paid on impressions not click-throughs. This means they can buy a load of fake traffic and earn money from you and your ad expenditure.
If you are going to pay for advertising, please do me a favour. DO NOT use Banners Broker, use a reputable company like Google Adwords or BingAds as you will actually be getting real traffic than can lead to revenue.
Ad-Pub Package – This package is intended for an publisher that is looking for traffic, but wants to offset their costs by working from the other end. It is essentially allowing you to burn from both ends of the stick…meaning, you get double the rip-off experience. The only thing worse than getting screwed once is getting screwed twice.
I also wanted to mention one thing about the Banners Broker program. The training, or lack thereof in particular if you are not invested in the “scheme”.
There is no real tangible training is a complete mystery with this program for some reason. You cannot gain access to the Banners Broker site itself to find out anything that you need to know and you cannot get direct answers to any of your questions from the affiliates. What you end up with is a complex, referral driven business without any kind of explanation and without any hope of success unless you are a genius or experienced in these types of ponzi style schemes. In other words, if you don’t have a massive LIST of folks that you feel like totally ripping off, the referral model within this program won’t be for you.
Does Banners Broker Hide Behind a Big Cloud of Smoke?
Customer support is supposed to come in the form of a contact form with an email address but no other information. If you try to use this contact form however the email will bounce back to you as “invalid”. Contacting affiliates will not get you any further assistance if you are not a member of the program.
Becoming a member does not insure better response, however, because there are several claims that people were contacting their referring member for assistance and getting nothing in return.
And low and behold you question the “ethics” of the program. You will get shunned from the program, in fact you will in many cases get removed altogether. Want proof ?
(from mirror.co.uk website)
This should set off some immediate red flags about the Banners Broker program, then definitely have something they are trying to hide!
Get Ready for Some Overpriced Advertising
This is one of the most complex aspects of the entire Banners Broker program. You can buy the basic “business package” for $145 but then must also buy three purple level packages and eleven yellow ones which brings the initial cost to $345. There are other levels that you can choose from, each with various requirements that must be complied with.
Then there is the ad-pub combo packages that go up to as much as $11,030. Don’t believe me, check out the package directly from their website. ..
This is shocking and if you were to ever invest into something of this nature, this is going to be a major displacement of capital from you business…meaning money going out the door and never coming back.
My final opinion of Banners Brokers – It Will Make You Broke!
Researching this program is next to impossible (you are probably having a tough time figuring out what the hell Banners Broker really is), especially if you do not have a referring member to get you in. Most links to either email support or to the site’s main page are invalid at this time and membership has changed.
A planned world tour has been cancelled and several of the program’s payment options have been removed. No one is getting the commissions they have earned with this complex and convoluted program and there are many complaints on their own Facebook page about this.
The Better Business Bureau has listed at least six claims on its site, a fact that is directly disputing by Banners Broker. Their score is now sitting at F and although I don’t agree with how BBB operates, I do think that it should be noted that there are many scam sites dedicated to letting people know about this program.
There are much better programs for business owners to use to market their product or service that do not require complex levels and certain amounts of traffic to be effective. You need to really ask yourself why you were looking to invest in the Banners Broker program in the first place and if it is to earn additional money online or to get additional reach to your business, there are MUCH better alternatives.
So in finality…
Were you looking to build a business? If so, this is absolutely not the place.
Were you looking to do something you would be proud of? Run for the hills from this program.
Were you looking to get a proper education as to how an online business works and how you can create one? Banners broker is going to disappoint.
There are legit programs online and this is absolutely not one of them. If you do decide to take part in this program, just know that you are (a) getting ripped off (b) joining something that is a complete sham (c) going to end up ripping others off when you have to refer them into this program.
The Final Overview
Name: Banners Broker
Website url: www.bannersbroker.com
Price: Varies based on the level of package that you purchase
Owners: Chris Smith
Overall Rank: 0 out of 100
Verdict: SCAM!
Want to See My #1 Ranked Internet Business Program?
If you have an questions or comments or you would like to add your own personal review of Banners Broker, I would love your feedback within the comments section below (I will get back to you right away). Thanks again.
Ooops Too Late !!!
Fell for this one about 3 years ago.
To be fair I thought I had done a good amount of diligence before signing up to this after it was recommended to me by a marketer I was following
The overall system was a great idea and I did get traffic to sites that I was advertising.
As for the making money with it, and withdrawing money this was so much more difficult
Then as mentioned the lawsuits soon followed and I never got any money back from this company just traffic to a few sites that never converted into any sales.
I did make virtual money with BB – But when I asked for money to withdraw nothing happened.
Very disappointed and I would URGE people to stay clear and stick with WA – You get so much more help, support and guidance.
I hope you have unfollowed this marketer and are no longer taking advice from them. A lot of folks that were involved in this program simply moved onto the next best scheme and took their audiences and lists with them. Unfortunately too many marketers use people as a tool to make money, they don’t view their reach and their brand as an opportunity to actually help people out.
Sorry to hear you you lost money on this program and I hope you were able to recoup some of your losses from the seized assets. The founders ended up getting charged criminally and served jail time for this program.
I really wanted to know what happened to the UK base. Is it still under reconstruction or demolished completely. Nothing is coming on the screen, no commission, we have no clue what is happening. Is there any chance of gettig our money back.
regrds.
I don’t know if you are going to be retrieve your money, but there were many pending lawsuits against Banners Broker and at one point there was $6MM in cash that being liquidated to folks that had been scammed prior to Banners Broker switching over their operations to a newly formed Belize company. I wish you all the best and I would do your research and see if there are any class actions that you can take part in.
I was caught by this scam and feel awful for the people who I introduced some of whom who are elderly and lost all their savings! At least I can say that I had my original money back plus, but for those who I introduced – definitely not so lucky – Very angry !!!
So sorry to hear that you ran into this program, they have moved onto a new scheme where they are ripping people off. I would avoid programs like this in the future Anne, there are a lot of these programs popping up in the industry.
Banners broker is now using the new company name rev star global. With the same men behind the scenes Paul redmayne and Fraser douther. Stay as clear as possible
Yeah, this continues to happen and there are many scams that are doing this. Creating new companies in different states to dodge the FTC, it will only be a matter of time until the Banners Broker team (Rev Star Global now) are caught up to again here with their unethical practices.
Seems that this scam is near its end.First debacle with WeW few days ago and now big farce with their fake World tour -even the radical followers are leaving the scene…let’s see how many weeks,days will Chris the scammer still move around but not for to long.
Yeah, it is just a matter of time before scams like this catch up to themselves and lose even those that are most faithful to the scam itself (promoting it). We have seen this with some of the epic schemes over the past few years, the most recent and probably the biggest ever being Zeek Rewards (which lost people $100’s of millions).
Before hand I used to think it as scam and been to their many presentation in UK and looks like to good to be true but I don’t know my brain got watched and I have joined it with $1000 and bought many panels
And strange part is that I got paid for around $800 and I don’t how but I think I am lucky one and sad news is my $1600 is stuck on pending withdraw and hoping that I get my money soon.
But after reading your article now I am thinking twice again to get into it or not.
They are saying they will launch v3 from October still no update yet, seeing some activities inside the membership but still everybody is on hope
Wish me good luck
Thanks
Alam
Get out well you can, this is going to turn into a sink hole for your money Alam. There is not question that Banners Broker is a scam and the sooner you can free yourself of it, the sooner you are going to avoid losing any more money.
I have been awaiting payoff since May 2013. New affiliates have been paid but those of us who has thousands of dollars are yet to be paid and are getting promises every month.
We have stopped recuiting mew affiliates until we see payoff action to our accounts.
Rdgs Lonewolf
You are likely never to see any of these like most unfortunately. You should consider one of the more legitimate programs on my site because this one is absolutely a scam…and a ponzi of great proportions.
Hello Kyle, I never heard of this, but I enjoyed reading the information that you provided. I want to learn as much as possible on what I need to be on the “look out” for. Thank you.
Hi Kyle
I unfortunately fell prey to this Banners Broker Scam last year and lost quite a bit of money. There were huge offline promotions for this program in Ireland and so many people joined lost their money and never made a cent. It is closed in Ireland now and thankfully I never recruited anyone into it. I had a funny feeling it was too good to be true before I joined, wish I had listened to that feeling! Thanks for doing this review and I hope it will save others from getting involved in this Ponzi Scam.
Sarah
Sorry to hear about this Sarah. There are some real scammers out there isn’t there?
Definitely put up your guard against the likes of programs like this going forward and if you want to be part of something that is a total safe haven from scams, I do hope you consider Wealthy Affiliate. It is the most helpful community of Internet marketers out there and EVERYTHING you need is included in one place. You will learn real business, not be involved in another “scheme”.
“Banner Broker” is an example of a decent idea run into the ground via a lack of legitimate business practices and just plain greed. The complicated system they use is a huge red flag as these kind of things are often used to “hide” the actual cost of using their service. I am looking for a better alternative to google adsense but this is most assuredly not it.
Thank you for the heads up on this Ponzi scheme these guys are just a bunch of snakes thing to sell you snake oil which we all knows never works the way it is suppose to
Tommy
Absolutely and they continue to pop up and retain a hand in people’s pocketbooks. I am surprised that the FTC doesn’t do a better job of regulating what is going on out there as there are certain programs that are popular, yet don’t take much investigation to realize what they are “really” doing.