Analysis Of Banners Broker

April 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment

In my previous article, I gave the background and history of Banners Broker. In this article I am going to do an analysis of Banners Broker using their description of who Banners Broker is, and what they do. But before I provide my analysis, I do want to point out that there are two main sources where this discussion of Banners Broker can be found. They are: www.realscam.com; and http://finchsells.com/2012/12/20/banners-broker-scam-update/. Now to my analysis:

Banners Broker hired a PR person, Terry Stern to address the business model of Banners Broker, and to answer questions about Banners Broker. Here is his explanation of how Banners Broker works, and I quote:

“BB buys ad space from ad networks with the understanding that they’re going to package that ad space up and resell it to their network of affiliates. These packages contain panels, each panel has a certain value and each has a specific time period it will take for that panel to mature, some as little as 2-3 weeks and some take 5-6 months or more. Each panel also requires a specific amount of traffic to mature. Each panel also has 2 values, what BB paid for it and what it’s charging the affiliate for it.

As BB sells the panels through their packages, they require traffic for these panels to generate revenue, which BB purchases in order to service the traffic needs of the panels. In return for purchasing the panels, BB pays a dividend to the affiliate once the panel matures, however, that panel is generating live revenue as the panel is running from the ad network. So BB is generating revenue from the sale of packages to affiliates, as well as from the ad network for serving ads. The ads appear on the ad space BB has purchased from the Broker in the blind network, as well as on publisher sites BB has attracted. Whether BB has 1 site, 100 sites or 100,000 sites in their network, they’ve already purchased ad space through their affiliation with the ad network, and that ad space rests on sites within the ad blind network. So no matter what, there’s advertising that will satisfy the panel needs. Since BB is paid every 2 weeks from the ad networks they do business with, and the panels mature at staggered intervals, BB is constantly serving ads and generating income. Now, it’s understood no business will pay on its products what it gets paid to sell them, so BB reduces the amount it’s paid by the ad networks for that advertising so it can afford to pay its affiliates and generate a profit.

Now since it takes traffic to generate ad revenue, BB purchases bulk traffic from the ad networks as well, which generate upwards of 3 Billion impressions per day. Again, since no company will sell a product for what it pays, it marks up the cost of the traffic to resell to the affiliate, the difference of course is profit for BB, and as BB owns the space and ads keep running, this revenue flows to BB. As it takes impressions to activate panels, and impressions for panels to mature, those impressions or traffic must be purchased up front. Now, an affiliate isn’t required to use all their traffic up front, but they must purchase it up front, like a variety store can’t buy individual cans of soda, it must buy cases. Since the purchased traffic represents a specific amount, and since each panel requires a different amount to activate, traffic purchases are constantly being made, and since BB only pays for what it uses, there’s always going to be a surplus, which represents profit for BB.

So, if we look at things together, BB generates revenue from the banners placed in the space it purchases, and through the amount of time it takes for the panels (which is a virtual representation of an ad space BB purchased in the blind ad network) to mature, it generates revenue from the sale of traffic that it takes to activate those panels, and since it only pays for the traffic it actually uses, that’s where the revenue BB generates comes from. Since it pays less to the affiliate than what it earns from the ads, and (to use an analogy) it pays on the cans of soda used not the cases bought, there’s a surplus of revenue that represents profit that it can now turn around and pay its affiliates with while maintaining profitable growth.

Any advertising generated either through the site or through affiliates is passed through to the ad networks, BB takes a commission on that sale, and passes 10% to the affiliate for bringing in the business. When it comes to publishers (people looking to monetize their websites with ad revenue), those sites are added to the BB internal or “choice” network, and leveraged with the ad blind network to get better pricing deals. The affiliate is paid 10% of the revenue generated by the ads revenue to the publisher with BB and the publisher splitting the balance.

This is how BB works in a nutshell. We’ve already established what the Blind Ad Network is, and it can be easily researched. It’s easily discovered that these companies all offer the ability for companies to “resell” their products (ads and traffic) to other resellers. It comes down to packaging really and how these initial “resellers” package what these networks provide to them to add enough value to resell others.”

Now that you have read the explanation of what the official representative of Banners Broker has stated is how Banners Broker works, let’s now analyze this industry in regard to Banners Broker.

Before I go into the detailed analysis, I do want to address the banner advertising business industry.  The industry as a whole is shrinking at the rate of about 25% per year due to all the other types of advertising that are now available to an advertiser. This flies in the face of Banners Broker claiming their business is growing and will continue to grow in the years to come.  It simply does not compute. You cannot have Banners Broker expanding in a shrinking market, especially when Banners Broker is insignificant player in this market in the first place. Simply put, advertisers are moving into the newer forms of advertising and abandoning the banner advertising market.  In fact it is very possible the banner market will disappear within the next 2 years as a significant form of advertising.  I am sure there will still be some banner advertising done, but not at the levels Banners Broker must have in order to survive in this market. So the question is: How can you have a business that is expanding in a market that is shrinking?

Now let’s look at each part of Banners Broker and see if it passes muster as a business model that is generating the amount of business and affiliate payments they claim.  I am not going to address the ad-pub combo of Banners Broker mainly because it doesn’t exist. No-one has ever been able to purchase the publication aspect of Banners Broker business.

Banners Broker says:

“BB buys ad space from ad networks with the understanding that they’re going to package that ad space up and resell it to their network of affiliates. These packages contain panels, each panel has a certain value and each has a specific time period it will take for that panel to mature, some as little as 2-3 weeks and some take 5-6 months or more. Each panel also requires a specific amount of traffic to mature. Each panel also has 2 values, what BB paid for it and what it’s charging the affiliate for it.”

Banners Broker Panels:  Banners Broker has different color panels, and each panel has a different cost and days to cycle. They are: Yellow – 1,000 banner impressions Cost $10; Purple – 3,000 banner impressions Cost $30; Blue – 9,000 banner impressions Cost $90; Green – 27,000 banner impressions Cost $270; Red – 81,000 banner impressions; Cost $810 and Black – 243,000 banner impressions Cost $2430.

Now that you have seen the cost structure of Banners Broker panels, let’s compare them to the real world of banner advertising. For example, you can purchase 6 Million global ad impressions from Feedjit for around $49, but the same impressions would cost you around $18,000 from Banners Broker.  Feedjit is not the only company that provides the same number of banner impressions for about the same price, so Feedjit is not the only one in this price-range.

Next Banners Broker says, and I quote:

“As BB sells the panels through their packages, they require traffic for these panels to generate revenue, which BB purchases in order to service the traffic needs of the panels. In return for purchasing the panels, BB pays a dividend to the affiliate once the panel matures, however, that panel is generating live revenue as the panel is running from the ad network. So BB is generating revenue from the sale of packages to affiliates, as well as from the ad network for serving ads. The ads appear on the ad space BB has purchased from the Broker in the blind network, as well as on publisher sites BB has attracted. Whether BB has 1 site, 100 sites or 100,000 sites in their network, they’ve already purchased ad space through their affiliation with the ad network, and that ad space rests on sites within the ad blind network. So no matter what, there’s advertising that will satisfy the panel needs. Since BB is paid every 2 weeks from the ad networks they do business with, and the panels mature at staggered intervals, BB is constantly serving ads and generating income. Now, it’s understood no business will pay on its products what it gets paid to sell them, so BB reduces the amount it’s paid by the ad networks for that advertising so it can afford to pay its affiliates and generate a profit.”

Now let’s analyze the “blind network” that Banners Broker talks about above. One of the companies that is providing advertising for Banners Broker is a company called Choice Network. This “network” consists of five sites. Yes you read that right – five sites. But they were sites owned by Banners Broker. When questions were raised about the Choice Network, the answer was it was in Beta testing.  Now stop and think about that for just a moment. Here is an advertising company that claims it is doing over $100 Million Dollars a year in advertising, and one of their networks is in Beta testing?  Later Banners Broker said there were real advertisers on the Choice Network to prove Banners Broker was real. Well, in reviewing those ads, and yes there were ads from real companies, only they traced back to www.ox-d.bannersbroker.com where the server is owned by OpenX Technologies. OpenX is a powerful ad exchange that offers publishers the chance to sell their own inventory, or broker through the OpenX Market.

Another market is Clicksor. Clicksor is a reseller network to sell ads. Banners Broker said that Clicksor was one of their advertising platforms. Clicksor Reseller Network specifically states that it will only grant the third party access to its publishers, not its advertisers. So how would Clicksor do business with Banners Broker as a third party advertiser? But there is another problem with their claim they use Clicksor as an advertising platform, and it is this:  In the latest 2011 data, Clicksor’s parent company Yesup Ecommerce Solutions Inc posted annual revenue of $17.5 Million dollars.  And yet Banners Broker claims to have paid out over $100 Million dollars, by brokering through Clicksor.

Next Banners Broker says:

“Now since it takes traffic to generate ad revenue, BB purchases bulk traffic from the ad networks as well, which generate upwards of 3 Billion impressions per day. Again, since no company will sell a product for what it pays, it marks up the cost of the traffic to resell to the affiliate, the difference of course is profit for BB, and as BB owns the space and ads keep running, this revenue flows to BB. As it takes impressions to activate panels, and impressions for panels to mature, those impressions or traffic must be purchased up front. Now, an affiliate isn’t required to use all their traffic up front, but they must purchase it up front, like a variety store can’t buy individual cans of soda, it must buy cases. Since the purchased traffic represents a specific amount, and since each panel requires a different amount to activate, traffic purchases are constantly being made, and since BB only pays for what it uses, there’s always going to be a surplus, which represents profit for BB.

Banners Broker said that the ad networks generate up to 3 billion ad impressions per day, or up to 90 billion ad impressions per month.  Clicksor provides about 5 billion ad impressions per month, and Tribal Fusion, which is the biggest company in this market, has a monthly capacity of 20 billion ad impressions per month. Now take into consideration how many affiliates are in Banners Broker, multiply that number by the number of ad impressions they have purchased, and immediately you have a problem with the number of ad impressions per month that Banners Broker needs compared to the whole market.  Simply put, Banners Broker would need 100% of the capacity of Clicksor to supply the ad impressions needed by Banners Broker affiliates.

Terry Stern, as I mentioned, who is the PR man for Banners Broker agreed to answer questions put to him at the FinchSells Blog and also at RealScam.  Well, let me just say he answered a few questions, but refused to or ducked the most serious questions put to him.  You can read this interchange with Terry and Finch here:  http://finchsells.com/2013/01/29/banners-broker-qa-with-terry-stern/ and at Real Scam here:  http://www.realscam.com/f8/banners-broker-question-answers-1924/.

I think you will find both these Q&A sessions most interesting reading, and will shed more light on Banners Broker as to what it claims as to what it truly is to many of us a Ponzi. One of the major issues with Banners Broker from my perspective was when Banners Broker was launched, they declared it to be the first real straight line cycler doubler. A point that Terry Stern, nor anyone from Banners Broker wants to talk about or discuss.  But another troubling issue was Banners Broker showing a stock photo of their CEO Chris Smith being white, and then when introduced publicly Chris Smith was black. This is another question that Banners Broker will not address as to why this was done.

Now we are told that Banners Broker is a Direct Sales Organization. The affiliates must now write blog posts in order for part of their panels to mature. No longer is it a “passive” program as it was advertised from its inception.  They keep changing the conditions their affiliates must comply with almost as frequently as people earn frequent flier miles.

As of this writing, the Banners Broker website is offline due to maintenance and moving to new servers. Payment problems continue and are behind as they have been since late October of 2012. Banners Broker has had their MasterCard pulled by MasterCard. Many of the affiliates were pointing out that if Banners Broker had a MasterCard, this proved they were legitimate. Now the question can be raised if MasterCard pulled Banners Broker MasterCard, does this now mean they are not legitimate?

World Tours have been cancelled. The closure of the India office, and the ongoing legal problems have not been resolved as claimed by Banners Broker. The legal case is still moving forward. There is confusion if the new office Banners Broker announced would be opened in India is indeed open and operational. All their bank accounts are still frozen, so one has to wonder how they are operating legally. There have been reports on how Banners Broker is accepting new affiliates and paying their affiliates, but if true they are doing it illegally.  One has to wonder with the current legal proceedings still ongoing why they would risk violating the law now.

There is no doubt the next 2-6 weeks are going to be pivotal for all the affiliates of Banners Broker as well as for the company. I will conclude by saying it is now just a matter of time before Banners Broker folds or is shut down by the authorities.  There are rumors flying all over the place, which is normal when a website is taken down for an extended period of time.  Especially when it is a IT-type company as Banners Broker operates as in their claim of advertising. If there system is down, how are they buying ad space for their affiliates?

I have already made my decision, and it was made a long time ago as to the legality of Banners Broker.  But as for you: As the motto of Real Scam says, “Is it, or isn’t it? You decide.”

Filed Under: General

Should a Business Invest More Money in Online or Offline Security?

March 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

The world is becoming increasingly virtual and having an online presence is a must for most businesses. With cyber criminals lurking behind every pixel there is a wealth of advice and warnings about your online security, but while your back is turned, staring at the screen, there are still physical offline threats that are ready to mount an attack.

For small and medium sized businesses it can be difficult balancing whether to invest limited security budgets in online or offline security. Taking the time to evaluate your business practices and the direction of likely threats can provide valuable information on where to erect your defences.

Information is Key

Businesses revolve around the information they hold and the battlements should be high to protect it. This may mean safeguarding intellectual property, protecting confidential information, or defending communication links.

Although common sense can help to avoid some data breaches, such as lists of passwords left on desks, there are more hazards waiting to pounce than just careless employee mistakes.

That’s Confidential

Data on your customer base is invaluable for decisions regarding research and business development, and as such should be locked in the safe with your diamonds.

Effective online security is needed to protect from information theft. Hackers want to get their grubby little fingers on your confidential information, from customer credit card details to your own earnings reports. Businesses need to be on their guard and using proper malware and virus protection, to prevent malicious programs that enable the theft of data, money or both.

Although you may not want to think about dissention amongst the ranks, threats from within are also a real and significant possibility, no matter how small your company is. Limiting access to sensitive information can significantly reduce the likelihood of it getting into the wrong hands, whether through accident or intention.

This can be implemented simply and cost effectively with an ID card and scanner system that monitors staff access to areas and hardware. Associated software will be able to detect unusual patterns of activity that can’t be explained by erratic staff wanderings.

Security cameras in restricted areas can help to distinguish between intent and mistake but are most useful for picking out the pieces from the ashes, rather than preventing the fire in the first place.

Is it On or Off?

Companies are dependent on their computer systems, and loss of information can be significantly detrimental on both finances and reputation.  It is imperative that data is protected and backed-up!

One option is to store hard-copy backups in offsite locations, which is useful for businesses where specialist software is used. Alternatively, lots of companies are now turning to online backups, which are completed securely across the internet and stored remotely, and are impervious to threats from manmade or natural disasters – unless the world’s entire Internet system goes down of course, but that’s unlikely.

Disruptive Behaviour

Worms and viruses are no longer just something unpleasant that requires a trip to the doctor, but are now the most common threat to online security. They are becoming increasingly more destructive, leading to disruption to businesses, corrupted databases, lost information and angry customers. Firewalls and anti-virus software are a must for front-line defence from this flood of nasties.

Ensure operating systems are kept up to date as these automatic updates will include vital security patches, although be aware that new hardware and software releases are frequent targets for viruses and updates should only be permitted from trusted sources.

However, there’s not just the malevolent presence of hackers to be worried about but the hapless mistakes of your own staff. Viruses can be spread by employees opening malicious websites or unsafe email attachments, especially if all the computers are hooked up to the same network so viruses can spread between them. Staff training on best practice in these areas will take the load off your malware and anti-virus software, and is easy on the company wallet.

Online or Offline?

Although the number and sophistication of cyber-attacks is increasing, the traditional dangers to business security still have a very tangible sting in their tail.

When deciding whether to spend more on online or offline security consider that although hackers, worms and viruses continue to dominate the press, easily-implemented offline security measures shouldn’t be overlooked. As the fight is brought to your PCs and communication links, don’t forget to look behind you at that shifty-looking figure entering the server room.

Are you strengthening your business defences? How are you managing to balance online and offline concerns?  Join the debate here.

James Duval is an IT manager, meaning his daily existence revolves around his computer and trying to stop people attacking its treasures. He blogs about all his IT-related musings for ID Pro. 
Filed Under: Security

Banners Broker – Real Or Smoke And Mirrors

February 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

First The Overview

Banners Broker is a program that launched the middle of November 2010.  At the time of its launch, it was billed as the first straight line cycler doubler, a new way to double your money. As with many of these programs, Banners Broker launched on the major Ponzi financial forums, many HYIP Monitor websites, blogs and the minor Ponzi financial forums.

It was posted by Banners Broker to confirm this was the “first” straight line cycler doubler as follows:

First, let’s clarify the claim:

“There are MANY Straightline Programs out there;
There are MANY Cyclers out there; and
There are MANY Doublers out there.

However there is NO OTHER PROGRAM that combines these three concepts together to deliver a powerful, sustaining, MEGA PROGRAM! In addition, the manner in which we seamlessly have these three popular trends working in unison is a work of art. In fact, if you can show us another program that is a Straightline Cycler Doubler will roll-up Panels, we will transfer $10,000 into your AlertPay Account! (We are expecting copy-cats, so any program you find must be operational prior to November 2010)

All Banners Broker marketers can feel proud repeating our claim; we are TRULY THE WORLD’S FIRST STRAIGHTLINE CYCLER DOUBLER! And Second to NONE.”

1. The office address for the headquarters of Banners Broker was initially:

Banners Broker Canada
100 King St W, Suite 5700
Toronto, ON – M5X 1B8
Phone: (702) 605-7410

This is a business executive suite with a central receptionist for multiple companies renting an executive office space.

2. Then it was changed to
1019 Nelson St., Unit 8
Oshawa, ON L1H 8A7

…which was an office above an auto repair/body shop.

3. Registration:

Banners Broker International was registered in Belize initially, and then was changed to the Isle of Man in August of 2012.

May 2011 – Banners Broker tries to recover from their failed marketing efforts

In May of 2011, to help gin up support for Banners Broker, they made a major pitch on all their forums, blogs and other advertising outlets to obtain more members.  It was obvious their previous marketing efforts had fallen way short of expectations.

This was their new marketing campaign (and I did not change anything from their announcement):

“We have Launched the Banners Broker Doubler more than 6 months! Many have already doubled their money.  Promote any program you wish, and we blast out your affiliate link. 

What is Banners Broker all about?  Did you guess that it has something to do with Banners? Well you are right! Banners Broker is a marketplace to BUY and SELL Banner Ad Impressions.

When you BUY a Banner Ad Panel Package, you get to paste your Banner Link to ANY program you are promoting! Are you in a Travel Program? Health and Wellness? Discount Savings? Has the company provided you with Banners to promote with but you are not sure what to do with them? Well think no more… all you need to do is paste your Banner Link into our backoffice and we will virally blast your link over the Internet.   

You can promote up to 10 different Banners. If you don’t have Banner Links, then just simply add the text link with a caption.  You are buying impressions, so whether you are promoting 1 program or 10, it doesn’t matter. They all go towards your impression count. (“Impressions” means the number of times your banner is displayed on unique viewers’ computers. When Joe sees your banner, that is 1 impression, when Sally sees your banner, that is a second impression, and so on).  

The Compensation Plan!

Simply put that you can and will double any amount you paid for your Banner Ad Panel Package, there is a small requirement to double your money which is to generate two sales which is equivalent to 2 referrals but if you want you can Test the Waters; and they will allow you to double your money Twice without having to get any referrals or sales.  You can double your money Twice without having to Refer anyone or make any else. 

There are 6 different entry packages as shown below: 

*Time Frame for Cycle Doubling: 

Yellow Panel 7-10 days. 

Purple panel 14-18 days 

Blue panel 30-35 days   

Green panel 60-70 days   

Black panel takes about six months for 1 double. 

* These are Approximation to the time it would take to complete a cycle. It can take less or longer.” 

Banners Broker Fails Again

The growth rate for Banners Broker was very dismal for 2011. Towards the end of 2011, there were payment processing issues, system issues that caused a lot of consternation with its affiliates as to its sustainability and viability as a real business.  They continued to limp through the first few months of 2012, and then they decided they needed to revise what Banners Broker really was all about as a business model.

In May of 2012, Banners Broker re-defined their Straight Line Cycler Doubler and how Banners Broker worked as follows:

“Banners Broker (hereafter referred to as BB) buys ad space from ad networks with the understanding that they’re going to package that ad space up and resell it to their network of affiliates. These packages contain panels, each panel has a certain value and each has a specific time period it will take for that panel to mature, some as little as 2-3 weeks and some take 5-6 months or more. Each panel also requires a specific amount of traffic to mature. Each panel also has 2 values, what BB paid for it and what it’s charging the affiliate for it.

As BB sells the panels through their packages, they require traffic for these panels to generate revenue, which BB purchases in order to service the traffic needs of the panels. In return for purchasing the panels, BB pays a dividend to the affiliate once the panel matures, however, that panel is generating live revenue as the panel is running from the ad network. So BB is generating revenue from the sale of packages to affiliates, as well as from the ad network for serving ads. The ads appear on the ad space BB has purchased from the Broker in the blind network, as well as on publisher sites BB has attracted. Whether BB has 1 site, 100 sites or 100,000 sites in their network , they’ve already purchased ad space through their affiliation with the ad network, and that ad space rests on sites within the ad blind etwork. So no matter what, there’s advertising that will satisfy the panel needs. Since BB is paid every 2 weeks from the ad networks they do business with, and the panels mature at staggered intervals, BB is constantly serving ads and generating income. Now, it’s understood no business will pay on its products what it gets paid to sell them, so BB reduces the amount it’s paid by the ad networks for that advertising so it can afford to pay its affiliates and generate a profit.

Now since it takes traffic to generate ad revenue, BB purchases bulk traffic from the ad networks as well, which generate upwards of 3 Billion impressions per day. Again, since no company will sell a product for what it pays, it marks up the cost of the traffic to resell to the affiliate, the difference of course is profit for BB, and as BB owns the space and ads keep running, this revenue flows to BB. As it takes impressions to activate panels, and impressions for panels to mature, those impressions or traffic must be purchased up front. Now, an affiliate isn’t required to use all their traffic up front, but they must purchase it up front, like a variety store can’t buy individual cans of soda, it must buy cases. Since the purchased traffic represents a specific amount, and since each panel requires a different amount to activate, traffic purchases are constantly being made, and since BB only pays for what it uses, there’s always going to be a surplus, which represents profit for BB.

BB generates revenue from the banners placed in the space it purchases, and through the amount of time it takes for the panels (which is a virtual representation of an ad space BB purchased in the blind ad network) to mature, it generates revenue from the sale of traffic that it takes to activate those panels, and since it only pays for the traffic it actually uses, that’s where the revenue BB generates comes from. Since it pays less to the affiliate than what it earns from the ads, and (to use an analogy) it pays on the cans of soda used not the cases bought, there’s a surplus of revenue that represents profit that it can now turn around and pay its affiliates with while maintaining profitable growth.

Any advertising generated either through the site or through affiliates is passed through to the ad networks, BB takes a commission on that sale, and passes 10% to the affiliate for bringing in the business. When it comes to publishers (people looking to monetize their websites with ad revenue), those sites are added to the BB internal or “choice” network, and leveraged with the ad blind network to get better pricing deals. The affiliate is paid 10% of the revenue generated by the ads revenue to the publisher with BB and the publisher splitting the balance.”

Please note the major changes from when this first launched back in November of 2010 to what Banners Broker now is claiming they were all about in May of 2012.

I mentioned that Banners Broker had limped along from its inception in November of 2010 until the middle part of 2012.  We know this as it was announced on the blogspot that Banners Broker only had 50,000 affiliates at the end of May 2012.

In the middle of July 2012, came this bombshell announcement from Banners Broker:

“IMPORTANT INFORMATION 

Dear BB Affiliates, 

There comes a time in business where difficult decisions have to be made for the betterment and longevity of the organization. Kuldip Josun, our VP of Corporate Sales has been relieved of his duties and is no longer affiliated with Banners Broker or any Banners Broker partner companies. It has become apparent that the direction Mr. Josun wanted to proceed with is not the same vision of Banners Broker. Banners Broker is an online advertising company and will grow in the direction of providing online sales and marketing tools. 

We wish Mr. Josun the best of luck in his future endeavours.   

To address some important points, first and foremost, it is business as usual for all Affiliates, Leaders, Resellers and Independent Contractors.  Chris Smith is the sole owner of Banners Broker International since inception and is the sole signing officer for the Banners Broker International bank accounts.  As we continue to grow, Rajiv Dixit will be handling corporate sales for the interim, and we will be hiring a new on-the-road sales and presentation specialist for long term. Due to a breach of contract, Mr. John Rock is no longer assisting Banners Broker Canada with compliance and is no longer affiliated with Banners Broker or any Banners Broker partner. All decisions that have been made are final. 

We are extremely excited about the 2nd convention on Sunday, July 15th and we are expecting a huge crowd. This convention will be bigger and better than the first. Looking forward to seeing all of you there! 

Sincerely, 

Chris Smith, CEO Banners Broker International”   

Now what made this news even more newsworthy was Mr. Josun was listed initially as one of the owners of Banners Broker.

Banners Broker Secures A MasterCard. Affiliates Get Scolded.

In mid-July, Banners Broker announced they had secured a MasterCard that was issued through Vector Services. The purpose of the card was to offer another method of payment to pay their affiliates which would be faster than using the payment processors.  With this news, many of the affiliates began touting the fact that if Banners Broker had a MasterCard that meant that Banners Broker was being endorsed by MasterCard proving its legitimacy. This was to counter the growing voices claiming that Banners Broker was a Ponzi. It seems MasterCard did not appreciate this claim and this lead Banners Broker to release this announcement:

“TO: All Valued Banners Broker Affiliates 

October 1, 2012 

RE: Non Compliant Website & Marketing Verbiage 

URGENT NOTICE 

Hello all, 

We need your help and attention to this matter immediately.  Recently we have been informed by Vector Card Services, the providers of our Prepaid MasterCard, that there are numerous websites that have been promoting the Banners Broker program and its unique Prepaid MasterCard with verbiage and images that have not been approved by either MasterCard, Choice Bank Limited or Vector Card Services. 

We have been officially warned by MasterCard International and sanctions against our program may be imposed if our affiliates do not remove all unauthorised verbiage of the Prepaid MasterCard card. 

We take the promotion and marketing of our program very seriously and require every affiliate to adhere to our polices and guidelines. Communication and promotion of our products, services, and program needs to be reviewed by the Banners Broker corporate office before posting live. 

Our web compliance team actively scours websites for compliance adherence and we will immediately suspend your membership and all payments; until these impacted websites are removed or approved. 

Please help us by removing all mention of the Prepaid MasterCard program from your website until you have submitted it for approval. It’s a simple process, please send to Banners Broker’s corporate office (or your regional leader) the layout of any websites, marketing campaigns and/or brochures that you wish to utilise for the promotion of the program. We will endeavour to have these documents approved by MasterCard as quickly as possible. You can then officially post these documents back to your website. 

If you are not sure whether your website is compliant, please follow the same procedures to get it approved officially by MasterCard and Choice Bank Limited. Vector Card Services has committed to the quickest turn around for these approvals to reduce the impact to your business.

Your attention to this matter is urgent and vital to the success of our program.

Regards,

BannersBroker”

July 31, 2012. BannersBroker Limited Shuts Down

On July 31, Banners Broker announced that Bannersbroker Limited had shut down operations as a Reseller for Banners Broker International.  They also announced:

“Stellar Point Inc has been contracted to handle the support for Canada and Internationally. We welcome them aboard as our new Canadian Partner. All support services will remain unchanged.”

Banners Broker using its new definition of what kind of business Banners Broker was and how it worked soon ran into more payment issues.  In mid-September they also announced that any affiliate saying anything negative about Banners Broker would have their accounts closed and they would not get their money back.

In October 2012, Banners Broker announced a new comp plan with their release of BB version 2.6. Here is their announcement:

BB version 2.6:

“1) Traffic pack qualified panels will give 1/2 sales credit to inviter upon completion rather than full credit.

This means that anyone you have introduced who qualifies their panels using traffic packs you as the inviter, will only get half the sales credit. This is to encourage people to work with their teams to help them build their business and even help them with referring people

Currently if someone qualifies for example a yellow panel using their traffic pack you as the inviter get 2500 in credits. After upgrade to BB version 2.6 you will get 1250 (half)

In the future BB are bringing out an additional way to qualify panels alongside TPs

2) Traffic pack subscriptions will be automated

75% of your highest months TP purchases will be your monthly commitment

3) Auto admin fee charging – they have noticed that this has not been working correctly and they will be bringing it up to date The admin fees will be taken on the same date that you activated your package.

For brand new people joining if they activate their pack for example on the 15th September, there subscription will be taken on the 15th of October

4) Security layer – transaction pins and locked pages etc will be put in place

5) Automatic rollup Details are for Version 2.6 only. This will change in BBv3 it will be a bit different but for now it is as follows

If you have 10 or more unqualified panels of same colour dated older than 8 days, the system

Will automatically find them and roll them up when you visit the view panels page.

The panels need to be at least 8 days old for the auto-roll up to happen.

Example: if you have 100 unqualified yellow panels and you go to the view panels page It will automatically roll-up three yellow panels to one purple (if older than 8 days)

This will then leave you 97 yellow panels, if you then go to another page and come back to the yellow view panels page It will roll-up another 3 yellow panels to 1 purple

To avoid roll-up, DO NOT visit the view panel page.

Automatic rollup, will not roll-up panels that have already been rolled up from a lower colour

So if you have rolled 9 yellows to create 3 rolled up purples, the system will not roll those three purples to blue

Why 10 panels? next version BBv3 will have countdown timer and things will be slightly different and roll up will happen when you have 6 unqualified panels. This current version will roll up 3 out of 10″

Banners Broker Helps Themselves, Not The Affiliates

So basically they cut the earnings in half, which only benefited Banners Broker, not the affiliates. It also did not help their payment issues.  These continued up through the end of the year, but all was promised to be fixed with the release of their next new software come the first of the year.  Not only did they have payment issues, but the rotation of the panels had slowed to a crawl. If the panels do not cycle, the affiliates were not making money. They also made a lot of promises they did not keep and set deadlines to “fix” the payment and panel cycling that were not met. All of this adding to the confusion as to what was going on with Banners Broker.

Payment Problems Continue

They kept promising that the payment issues were being worked on and would soon be caught up. They made a big announcement that all affiliates who had submitted a withdrawal request by December 5th, would be paid by December 20th.

They also announced that Friday December 21st 4PM EST would be the last day the offices would be open and that they would reopen January 2nd. Support ticketing system would be offline during this time.

They claimed that the site would be monitored every day and that IT would be on top of things – and that if there were an issue with the site, they would still be here and this will be resolved.  They said that Banners Broker started 2012 with 1,000 members and had grown to 250,000+ members by the end of 2012.

Banners Broker Releases Another Bombshell In Their Last Update Of 2012

Another bombshell of a statement was also made in their last update of 2012, and it was this:

Banners Broker announced that Ian Driscoll’s UK’s independent contract had not been renewed, but the UK would have a new office in January located in Manchester. Now what was stunning about this announcement is that Ian Driscoll was touted as one of Banner Broker’s millionaires.  While they claimed there was nothing to be concerned about with this announcement, it still sent shockwaves through the Banners Broker affiliates.

Banners Broker’s Goa, Indian Office Gets Raided By The Authorities At The End Of Decemeber, 2012

But that was not the end of Banners Broker unsettling news for 2012. At the end of December it was announced that their Goa, India office had been raided by the authorities and the person in charge had been arrested and had charges filed against her. These charges still have not been resolved, and no word on a court date.

This is the end of the “overview” of Banners Broker, and next will be an in-depth review of Banners Broker, their claims of their business model and why it does not stand up to critical analysis.

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