Banners Broker Ireland
You’ve probably read or heard some of the information on Banners Broker Ireland in the Newspapers (particularly the Irish Examiner & Sunday World twice), on Joe Duffy’s Liveline show or across a range of websites such as Boards.ie. I’m writing about it here because it was mentioned to me by a friend, who has made some money out of it. All he could say was that he had, in fact, received a profit in cold, hard cash, but he had absolutely no idea how the whole concept worked – and my Pyramid Scheme radar instantly went off. (This is quite an old post by the way, you’ll find some more up to date info here).
*** Note – see this post – those running Banners Broker have been arrested in Canada.***
As a starting point, here’s the interview with Paul McCarthy of Banners Broker Ireland and others on the Joe Duffy show courtesy of Eddie O’Driscoll. Beware, it’s a bit of a cringe-fest and you’ll never hear the words ‘blind network’ used as much again in your life as you will from the 49 minute mark onwards. It is also over an hour long.
What is Banners Broker Ireland all About?
I wish I could tell you. I’ve since looked into Banners Broker Ireland and, to be honest, despite a degree in IT Management, I don’t understand it any better now than I did when I started. Banners Broker Ireland claims to sell banner advertising around the web. When you look for an explanation online you get an avalanche of YouTube posts that essentially refer back to an online video presentation by ‘Raj’ – otherwise known as Rajiv Dixit. This appears to be because none of the people selling this have any idea what exactly is going on any more than I do. Here’s just one, but you’ll find a lot of them on YouTube if you have a quick search. Concentrate at around 12:30 because that’s when most of the magic happens. That’s when people that don’t actually own a website suddenly become both advertisers and publishers all at the same time, using the Banners Broker AdPub Combo, thus creating a new and, heretofore, unrecognised source of unlimited wealth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuovux6rAgY
Back at the Banners Broker website the old ‘Trillion Dollar Industry’ hogwash gets hoiked out fairly early in proceedings which is always a bad sign. Billions don’t cut it anymore since the US, Europe and the UK started into quantitative easing in the trillions. Banking is also a trillion dollar industry, but it means nothing to me because I don’t own a bank. Equally, the size of the online advertising industry, which most website owners will tell you is vastly over-estimated anyway, is of no consequence to you unless you own a fairly large online advertising entity or a very popular publishing group to carry adverts. In fact, most mainstream media will tell you that it is almost impossible to make online advertising pay no matter what the size of the publishing company. Google is the obvious’ poster-boy’ of the online advertising industry. It has managed to make a lot of money from online advertising – website owners not so much unfortunately. In any case, there are other, less well-known names that manage to make a considerable income from this sector. Banners Broker is not one of them.
On its site it says: “We connect advertisers with effective ad space and publishers with the most relevant ads to market on their websites. With an extensive online network consisting of hundreds of thousands of publishers and advertisers from around the world, we help our clients increase sales and earn additional advertising revenue.”
So there should be literally hundreds of thousands of Banners Broker adverts strewn around the web, but there aren’t. I can safely say I have never, ever come across a website hosting an advert managed by Banners Broker. (Edit: I’ve since found a few, like the one above with no actual adverts in them. They’re all located on a group of interlinked websites all owned by the same entity, operating from the same webserver, set up around April 2012 and all created on cheap WordPress pacakges). Apart from this I’ve drawn a complete blank. As far as I can tell Banners Broker has never sold a banner advert to anyone – apart from sticking a few banners on a selection of its own websites I cannot find a single commercial entity that has ever as much as encountered a Banners Broker advert. This is extremely worrying. The company doesn’t appear to sell anything. Try signing up as an Advertiser if you doubt this, and see for yourself the piddling little pond of potential advertising websites. Ponzi Scheme flag number one.
But I’m Getting Money Back – Banners Broker Ireland has to be OK
Flag number two – immediately. One of the things that makes Ponzi Schemes work is that they always pay handsomely in their early days. During the flourish when there are people pouring in with new money, it is easy to pay earlier investors from the incoming funds. This feeds on natural human greed and envy of others ‘doing well’ out of the investment vehicle. Friends inform other friends, who all bail into the ‘opportunity’. The problem for any Ponzi Scheme comes when growth stops. Then the incoming cash is not sufficient to meet the demands of those who have been in it long enough to expect to be able to take significant amounts of cash out. At that stage it all comes tumbling down.
Interestingly, Ponzi Schemes typically struggle badly over periods like Christmas where investors want to get cash back to cover an expensive time of the year. The Banners Broker World Tour could not have been better timed it would appear. Roll on Ireland.
The Gala Ball in the CityWest in Saggart was a blast apparently, these Diamond Geezers certainly enjoyed it:
As Mark Stokes, Simon Stepsys and James Pitsillides are early entrants to the scheme, and obviously doing very well out of it, Joanne (who appears right at the end following the prescient words; “we’ll show you what we’re going to enjoy tonight”) must be utterly delighted to have met some of the recipients of her Banners Broker investment and feel reassured that it is going to a good cause.
But I’m Certain that Banners Broker is Different – It is not a Ponzi Scheme
There really is no arguing with someone who is determined that something that involves putting in ‘your cash’, but no work, is a genuine business opportunity. Step back and take a look at it with some perspective – it is looking for nothing other than ‘your cash’ – Ponzi Scheme flag number three. The product is completely irrelevant, it is merely a conduit to enable you to put cash in the system. With a Ponzi Scheme the only thing that matters is cash – yours.
I can see my returns with Banners Broker Ireland
No you can’t. You can see something somewhere giving you a figure of some description. The figures are fairly arbitrary, but they go up in huge multiples over a relatively short period of time – by genuine investment standards. Ponzi Scheme flag number four. The constantly climbing figures, even though not generally achieved because ‘leaving your money in’ leads to ‘more potential for profit’. This is a tool to maintain the interest (or pander to the greed if you like) of those involved. It also makes sure they never try to take out too much cash, as that obviously hobbles the system. Telling them that they’ll harm their returns by extracting cash usually sorts that one out – certainly in the short term. Urging successful investors to not alone leave their ‘profits’ within the system, but to add to the cash they hand over is the ultimate ‘sweet spot’ for any Ponzi Scheme. Banners Broker, it seems, manages to do this in spades. Outlined here, inadvertently, by one Tom Cunniffe – sweet-spot achieved at around 3:07:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozoFUk7nb9E
No pornography or gambling – terrible shame, they could have aspired to so much more. Promotion of completely fraudulent business models seems to be fine, so we’re ok there then.
Anyway, jesting aside, the only figure that matters is the amount of money you have actually physically withdrawn.
But I am Physically Getting Money Back – Banners Broker Ireland has an eWallet
Banners Broker allows you to use funds from its now famous e-wallet (http://bit.ly/QCeAex). The e-wallet is largely non-existent money (not totally because you can take some of it out, but that’s just a ‘below cost selling’ ruse to get more punters on board – see next paragraph). The e-wallet contains just a figure they give you in a system run by them, it’s not real money. It costs them nothing to give up some of it to get another ‘investor’ on board or allow you to ‘invest’ in more ‘inventory’. In fact it suits them fine, because it avoids the unpleasant scenario of you actually trying to take some of that money physically out of the system. Once this all starts to crash that e-wallet will be utterly useless.
Ponzi Schemes, contrary to popular belief, deliver a lot of actual wealth for those who get in early and take out whatever they can get their hands on. It’s a bit like below cost selling for supermarkets. It is a promotion for the Ponzi Scheme as a whole if a selection of people are actually able to realise fairly healthy profits. It helps propagate the myth. But all you’re really doing if you withdraw funds is taking them from some other poor sucker in the scheme. It only becomes relevant when the amount of people looking to withdraw cash outweighs those looking to invest it.
It does not count if you’ve withdrawn it to make sure you can get it out, and then put it back in again. At this stage in this particular scheme it is still possible to withdraw cash, because Banners Broker is still recruiting new members. This growth is already starting to falter as Banners Broker is now embarking on the aforementioned ‘World Tour’ in order to drum up more recruits. There are also signs that Banners Broker is putting restrictions on what can be withdrawn, by whom and how much. All not at all boding well for incoming investors.
This is all the more disturbing as it’s all over Ireland like a rash at the moment. Unfortunately Ireland has proven in the past to be a very fertile stomping ground for Multi-Level Marketeers (MLM and Pyramid Schemes are not the same thing, but there are many elements of MLM utilised in all Pyramid Schemes, which has given MLM a very bad name). The Irish as a people network very well. When one person makes a ‘profit’ from something they are very keen to tell their nearest and dearest. When they lose money they all shut up – to hide the shame. Pyramid Schemes have, therefore, traditionally flourished in Ireland.
Banners Broker Ireland Following in the Footsteps of Famous Irish Pyramid Schemes
Some of you will be old enough to remember ‘Women Empowering Women‘ or the ‘Hearts Network‘ where people literally showed up at community halls around the country with brown paper bags full of cash. In fact, if I remember correctly, one such scheme dispensed entirely with the facade that there was a product involved at all, it merely asked people to give others big lumps of cash, which would ultimately result in your receiving a huge margin of profit in return. It did not end well. Ireland’s social elite will have less than endearing memories of Breifne O’Brien. No great joy in that ending either.
You may also remember the Irish property market Pyramid Scheme driven by Irish Banks from 2000 to 2007, RIP. It purported to involve property, but didn’t really. It just involved people swapping title deeds for prices up to double and treble what had initially been paid. Bad ongoing torturous ending still being endured there.
The phenomenon is in no way unique to Ireland. Charles Ponzi was, after all, Italian American. There was Albania’s famous offering as a welcome back to capitalism, Allen Standford also had a bash at it and, if you want one with the ultimate in respectability that consequently dragged on for nearly two decades, dear old Bernie Madoff comes to mind. They prey on human greed and the desire to make a ‘quick buck’ so the phenomenon of Pyramid Schemes will never leave us.
But there’s No Recruitment in Banners Broker so it’s not a Pyramid Scheme
There is recruitment, it is just done very succinctly. You’ll have heard our likely lads in the second video above referring to ‘mentors’, it sounds quite benign. Referred recruits are also often called ‘affiliates’, again a fairly inoffensive term. If you look at YouTube posts relating to Banners Broker (it seems to be the favoured method of gaining new affiliates) then you will notice that they all give you their own personalised Sign-Up address (www.bannersbroker.com/signmeupnow although often masked to look like this http://bannersbrokerprofit.com/joinbbFREE ), so that any new recruits accessing the site through that address can be credited to the referrer.
It is illegal to recruit in the fashion of a Pyramid Scheme in Ireland so Banners Broker has been smart enough to make sure that this side of the business model is well hidden in all its promotions over here. It has also got the Irish principals to very heavily promote the fact that you can make money without bringing anybody else into the system. From speaking to people who have become involved ‘profit’ growth is very slow if you don’t bring in new ‘investors’ and almost everybody reverts to signing others up to increase the speed at which their ‘profits’ grow.
If it were very heavily promoted I’d put this in as another Ponzi Scheme flag, but they’ve kept it under the radar just enough to let it slide – for now. The networking recruitment facet is something that epitomises every Ponzi Scheme and eventually brings them down. Because it has to keep bringing in more cash to cover the repayment to an ever growing base of mature investors, the scheme eventually reaches the point of diminishing returns where the effort and cost of attracting new members is simply not worthwhile because it doesn’t generate the necessary volume. This necessary volume keeps increasing as the scheme grows ever bigger. The ending is always a disaster for a large pool of ‘investors’ sitting at the base of the pyramid.
Don’t be caught out. This is just the latest incarnation – an internet based Pyramid Scheme for a new digital age.
But the Principals of Banners Broker Ireland Swear it’s not a Pyramid Scheme
Well I’m sorry, then it must be legitimate. What on earth do you expect them to say? In this case I believe the owner of the Irish franchise, Corkman Paul McCarthy, may well have been taken in as badly as all the Irish ‘investors’ involved – but that will be no excuse when all this comes tumbling down. If you’ve heard his portion of the Liveline interview with Joe Duffy above you’ll have noticed that the guy is completely clueless as to what Banners Broker actually does – which may well be why the company chose him to run its Irish operation.
You should also note that all the operations outside Canada are worked on a ‘franchise’ basis, the Canadian principals are working a nice little earner without having to get too involved. They have Patsies (or Paddies if you like) that can do that for them. One of the Canadian principals of Banners Broker is a guy called Rajiv Dixit (he of the all explanatory video above) – just do a Google Search. Ponzi Scheme flag number five.
By the way, I’m far from the only one to flag Banners Broker as an elabourate Ponzi Scheme, plenty of people have done so at this stage. In particular, MLM watchdog Rod Cook has also labelled it a fraud, you’ll find full details of his findings here – very well worth a read. The video report below is from Troy Dooly who is actually an MLM advocate in the US. Even those within the MLM industry can see that this is a blatant scam.
Banners Broker Ireland Produces Explanatory Videos
The business model is absolutely incomprehensible – especially having watched the ‘informative videos’. Ponzi Scheme flag number six. If you can understand any more than a 30 second stretch of the following video, purporting to ‘explain’ what Banners Broker is all about, then you are smarter than most people I know – or your mind works in mysterious ways. I’m not afraid to say it, I’m obviously thick – I have not an idea what any of the rubbish on these two videos means. But then I am fairly sure that’s the way it is meant to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9NSXz2t9vM
If that one didn’t do it for you try this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqSS5AV7C0g
The explanatory videos are totally and absolutely unintelligible, never mind the business model.
Rule number one of doing business, ‘Do not get involved in a business you do not understand’. This, if nothing else, should preclude you from giving any money to this organisation.
Banners Broker Ireland – It’s a Duck
I’m sorry guys, I’m afraid this whole Banners Broker Ireland vehicle is absolutely screaming out Ponzi Scheme, Multi-Level Marketing, Pyramid Scheme, call it whatever you like. As the old saying goes: ‘If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck – then it’s a duck’. Don’t be taken in by this – somebody will lose money. If you’re very lucky it may not be you, but it will be somebody, it’s just a question of when. When Pyramid Schemes come down they come down very hard – don’t expect this one to be any different. Do you really want to play the ‘Greater Fool‘ game with the very great possibility that this particular Greater Fool could turn out to be you?
How Can I Tell for Sure if Banners Broker Ireland is a Legitimate Business Opportunity?
Well if the above isn’t enough I’m not sure what you want but, if in doubt visit one of the meetings and ask them to explain the business model. They’ll tell you that it is the buying and selling of advertising no doubt – and probably couch it in a lot of techno-babble jargon like ‘impressions’, ‘packages’, ‘panels’, ‘blind networks’, ‘capping’, ‘visual representation’, ‘complimentary traffic’, ‘cycles’ and ‘inventory’ just to confuse you. Object every single time they say something you don’t fully understand. There will be an awful lot of objecting and they’ll probably eventually tell you to shut up or just refuse to answer your questions.
Should you make it that far, you should also ask for a significant list of top Irish websites that use adverts from Banners Broker – they claim there are hundreds of thousands of them so some proportion must be Irish. Failing that a good sprinkling of internationally acclaimed websites that feature thousands of daily impressions of Banners Broker adverts will suffice. They won’t be forthcoming, because they simply don’t exist. Case closed your honour.
Finally
Before you go, this informative video on Ponzi Scheme scams from British Columbia might give you a lot more insight than any of the videos above:
If you’ve been a victim of this scam in Ireland you should talk to The Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation in Harcourt Street on 01 666 3776 or visit their website.
Update:
You’ll find an interesting update on the whole Banners Broker saga over on the FinchSells website. He reports that the Goan office of Banners Broker in India has been shut down and is being investigated by the authorities. It also appears that the Banners Broker World Tour has been cancelled. I’m sure recent Irish affiliates will be delighted that they were able to get their ‘investments’ in before the tour came off the rails.
Further Update: In February 2014 the expected result of Banners Broker’s nefarious activities occurred – the company was wound up in the Isle of Man – see the report here in the Irish Examiner.
Final Update: On December 9th 2015 both Rajiv Dixit and Chris Smith were arrested in Canada. See announcement from the Toronto Police Service and video of the press conference on this post.
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Well done Diarmaid.
Well explained insight into this Ponzi scheme. I cant understand how the authorities allow these things to flourish. I have put a link to your blog on realscam.com. Many members there have been stung by this. Hope you dont mind this.
J
Thanks Jerry, you can put a link to it anywhere you wish. D
Great article, hope it gets a wide reading. Banners Broker is a scam!
tell me please…how BB is a scam if they allows new members buy a package trougth your inviter wallet with money genereated of his own panels?????
Hi Miguel, I’m not sure if you read the piece fully (or that I understand your question fully either). I take it your asking about using funds from the famous e-wallet (http://bit.ly/QCeAex), to bring another potentially cash bearing customer to the party. Of course they’ll allow you in. The e-wallet is largely non-existent money (not totally because you can take some of it out, but as I said, that’s just a ‘below cost selling’ ruse to get more punters on board). The e-wallet contains just a figure they give you in a system run by them, it’s not real money. It costs them nothing to give up some of it to get another ‘investor’ on board. In fact it suits them fine, because it avoids the unpleasant scenario of you actually trying to take some of that money physically out of the system. Once this all starts to crash you’ll have some craic trying to get money out of that e-wallet.
This is nothing new in Cork, heard about this first last April when my parner was approached by a friend to join, researched it and concluded its a remake of the “balls pyramid”, coincidently with meeting in the same venue.
I know for a fact that many members of the african community in Cork joined in the past and are not happy with the outcome. Much acrimony currently, lightly to lead to serious retribution on those who introduced them initially.
At least 2 mysterious car fires in the past month in the west cork area.
“You should also note that all the operations outside Canada are worked on a ‘franchise’ basis”
Actually, the Canadian arm now works as an “independent contractor” too, the running of the operation having been outsourced to a company called Stellar Point Inc after the closure of Bannersbroker Ltd, the original franchisee for Canada .
Funnily enough this “new partner”, Stellar Point, haven’t always used that name, they were up until recently, known by another name – Bannersbroker Ltd and run by exactly the same people, Rajiv and Gloria Dixit.
This probably means that all affiliate contracts are now with “Banners Broker Head Office”, which is a brass plate set-up in Belize, so I’d imagine that’s where anyone seeking redress will need to focus their ire when the collapse finally comes.
Thanks for that clarification ActiveRog.
ha you actually made me laugh. been trying to tell my brother this for weeks. pretty much came to the same conclusion myself infact just posted it on a few bb recruiters on utube. fyi that guy simon stepsys apparently mixed up in all sorts of sh1t got links to win-star direct, presswise, tripod.co.uk, monopolizer.net, morethantraffic and businesstailor.net sometimes under different names and phantom adresses and numbers in some cases. some of which defo scams (no question). and for some reason feels it necessary to tell you on every other video how he bought his £92000 porsche 911 with cash from a months wage its actually quiet funny and worth a look. anyone ever meets this guy be sure to call him either grand master guru or sensei, serious nob
and guess who got affiliate of the year 2012
I like this article except for a couple of facts, one which you chose to ignore. First by your own admission, you haven’t a clue how this works, second, you leave out the offerings of the guy who rang the joe Duffy show who came from an advertising background and said that Paul was making the whole thing more complicated than it needed to be. Banners broker buy remnant ad space in bulk and sell at a profit through an ad bidding process and use that same process to sell it on in smaller quantities for a big markup. Considering >95% of ads you see on social networks are from remnant sources you can see what size the market is.
Also, using troy dooley and rob cook as examples of people who put this down is not wise trust me.
Another blogger, looking for more hits to his site. Congrats my friend and you will receive tons more as banners broker will be around a long time :).
John
Hi John, thanks for the comments.
You are correct, Banners Broker has singly failed to explain to anybody how its financial model works. One thing I can guarantee you categorically is that Banners Broker do not “buy remnant ad space in bulk and sell at a profit through an ad bidding process and use that same process to sell it on in smaller quantities for a big markup.” This is why I left this reference out of the piece. There was lots of other rubbish in the Joe Duffy radio piece I also left out because it was equally unworthy of inclusion. If Banners Broker did in fact operate in this way it would have borrowed money from the bank, made a large profit and listed on the Canadian stock exchange by now. Instead they are trawling the hotels of Ireland and elsewhere looking for more suckers to pass on their hard earned cash and keep the pyramid active for as long as humanly possible.
Mssrs. Dooly and Cook were included specifically because of their MLM roots, even people within this scam ridden industry know that Banners Broker is a Ponzi Scheme. In fact, practically everyone in Banners Broker knows it is a Ponzi Scheme, it’s fairly obvious once you’ve been inducted. Some decide to go with it and just hope that they can get to the stage where they can get their money back before it all implodes – others seek to fight against it. Banners Broker’s answer is to shut their accounts, basically taking all their money illegally. Not the actions of a bona-fide company.
Finally, yes this blog post has got a lot of traffic, but it is inconsequential to me as none of them are interested in the industry in which I’m involved, so your final argument is completely invalid. The post was put there simply to warn the gullible about what is actually going on in this nefarious scam.
Banners Broker will not, I’m afraid, be around for a long time. To repeat what I said in the article: “There really is no arguing with someone who is determined that something that involves putting in ‘your cash’, but no work, is a genuine business opportunity.”
Take my advice, if you’ve even broken even, take out whatever money you can get (if you can get any at this stage) and thank your lucky stars you avoided financial Armageddon, because that is what will result from this shameless sham.
thanks for your reply, but you still refuse to add any commment about an expert in this field who was on the joe duffy show. This expert explained quite well how in theory this works. He was also asked would he do business with them if he were an advertiser and he said no he wouldnt, he would choose google. That is because he looks at it from an advertising side of things. The money being made with BB is through The adpub combo package where you get impressions to use for your own business and place them on sites and you get ad inventory which is situated on sites where advertisers buy to advertise from outside the membership.
Honestly im all for anyone who warns anyone about scams or whatever but you really havent got a clue what you are talking about here and conveniently ignore someone on that very radio show who did.
As for taking my money out you again you have no clue. Just to put it in figures, i make twice YES TWICE what i make in my high paying day to day job per month!! I have withdrawn multiple times what i used to originally purchase and thats with only having a few family and friends as direct referrals who have also made multiplte times what they purchased. Now, most of them have not referred a single person.
Stick to commentating something which you actually take the time to know about rather than “guaranteeing” things when you havent an iota and all the while ignoring an expert in the field. As for listing themselves on the stock exchange that is exactly what makes them different but people in closed boxes like you cant see outside,
respectfully,
John
Thanks for the kind comments John.
You seem like an educated sort, with lots of knowledge of this Web thingy, so in order to clarify the situation for me, could you explain in a clear and concise manner what the AdPub Combo is, because myself and many more like me can’t figure it out. Your statement “…you get impressions to use for your own business and place them on sites and you get ad inventory which is situated on sites where advertisers buy to advertise from outside the membership” apart from being confusing in the extreme, is simply not true. People giving money to Banners Broker do not have businesses to promote on BB and no company has ever been provided by Banners Broker to prove that it has ever bought or sold as much as a Euro’s worth of so called ‘inventory’.
As far as I’m concerned it’s a mumbo-jumbo contrivance concocted very cleverly by Banners Broker to confuse those with little or no knowledge of the internet just enough to make them believe that there is a way to make money out of online advertising without owning a website or doing any work. It works in Banners Broker’s favour on the basis that most people do not have the slightest idea how advertising on the internet works, but they’re sure there is loads of money to be made out of it and they want a slice of it. BB panders to this ‘not wishing to miss the next big thing’ by appearing to hand it to them on a plate.
It is also beyond the bounds of possibility that there is a company out there that will take this web-elixir and give you some of it for an investment of a few Euro, enabling you to harvest untold riches that they could, far more efficiently, invest in and take themselves. If it existed and was as efficient as Banners Broker would like us to think it is every venture capitalist in the world would be falling over themselves to get involved – but they’re not. Such benevolence has never happened before in the history of business and as far as I’m concerned it is not happening now.
Come back to us in January 2014 and let us know how it is going. I’m sure BB will have listed on the stock exchange somewhere by then and every investor will have got a big chunk of stock so you’ll all be in clover.
After that I’ll leave it to you as you seem to know what it’s all about. I suspect you’re alone though.
This is exactly what i have just ranted on about. AGAIN you ignore fact that a guy, who said he wouldnt use BB for advertising, explained in theory that this can work. Please acknowledge this in your post! Failure to do so is basically a let down to your readers.
I will explain the adpub combo package to you. Adpub stands for advertiser/publisher. An advertiser is exactly as the name suggests, someone or some company who wishes to advertise. A publisher is someone or some company who own a website looking to sell ad space.
The adpub combo package allows you to become a publisher in the sense that you purchase impressions on various sites with the blind network which are then sold on to advertisers for a profit. BB give you back 90% of the revenue. They make their money through membership fees and other costs associated with your business model.
On the advertising side of the adpub combo package you recieve impressions from BB. If you have a business, just like me, you can upload banners that advertise your business and then create a campaign that BB will send out to a network. When someone sees your ad they click it and land on your site. They have a basic tracking report which i find not to be good as its not detailed enough so i use google analytics to see the statistics on the campaign ive created. If you have no business then you can send out BB adverts so that when someone clicks the ad, they land on your BB sign up page and you may get a referral from it.
As for untold riches? If you purchase a package you will not become rich for a very very very long time without getting referrals. You will make money but not anything to cover a mortgage per month for instance. I know someone for example that bought a $415 dollar package and has no referrals and made about $1600 profit after 1 year. Its not the money making machine a lot of people claim.
You will not see BB go public and even if you did i wouldnt make a penny from the listing as i am a member, i do not own any shares.
respectfully,
John
I’ll leave it with you John. Come back and let us know how it is going in 2014.
John… on a scale of 1 to ‘complete bellend’, would you care to express how you feel right now?
I have no sympathy for anyone who ‘invests’ in these scams, because it’s greed, stupidity and a huge sense of self-entitlement that got them into it. What does bother me is this… the people at the top of the pyramid, people like you, John, people who knew it was a pyramid scam yet didn’t give a second thought to the people you convinced to ‘invest’ their money in the scam. You sound intelligent enough, so I know that you were well aware it was a pyramid scam but despite being aware of the scam, you continued to convince people (friends and family?) to sign up, safe in the knowledge that you would be receiving a percentage of the money stolen from them. How does this make you feel, John? Do you feel any remorse for your actions or are you happy that you not only facilitated the theft of money from your family and friends but you also profited from it?
I honestly believe that the vast majority of ‘victims’, aren’t in fact victims. I believe they knew exactly what was going on yet decided that money was much more important than screwing over their friends and family.
In reply to James, I think you may be the bellend with comments like that, the ordinary investor was lead to believe it was a sound business in the advertising space, i know a lot of people who put money into it and they genuinely thought it was a valid business, they are not the people who got other people in, i take your point about anyone who got family or friends in, they obviously knew it was a ponzi but most of the poor sods who invested in it were unaware that paul mccarthy and his cronies were and are in fact running the biggest scam this country has seen since anglo
So you’re telling me that intelligent people ‘invested’ in something my 14 year old nephew decided was scam within 5 minutes of reading about it?
Where was the product? How many ‘investors’ asked to see the product? If I was buying something… anything, I’d want to see what I was buying. How can anyone be stupid enough to buy something that doesn’t even exist?
Hey, I have purchased 10,000 square kilometers of real estate on Mars, and I’ll be renting this space out to companies in the very near future, and eventually, I’ll be selling plots for houses. It’s all above board, honest, and because I like you, I’m going to cut you in on the deal. For the small sum of €100,000, I will give you 100 acres of land on Mars. Not only that, I will give you resale rights on that land! The land is currently being sold at €20,000 an acre, so you you can see what a great investment opportunity it obviously is, and I’m sure you can convince your family and friends to cash in on this deal of a lifetime, also! (but hurry and make sure you get in before everyone else, as there are limited places at the top of my Multi Level Mars)
You’d have to have an IQ comparable to that of a gherkin to get caught out by this or any Ponzi scam. I guess it says a lot about Ireland’s ‘investors’, and probably goes a long way towards explaining why there are thousands of unfinished housing estates around the country, housing estates that were started by greedy, clueless ‘investors’, who suddenly became property developers overnight and became bankrupt just as quick. I have no sympathy for these fools, either, because again, just like this Ponzi scheme, it was greed and stupidity that lost them all their money.
A fool and his money are soon parted… never a truer word spoken!
I dont recall the Irish property maket pyramid scheme.What was it?
The buy-to-let bubble created in the mid-noughties by Irish banks giving 100% finance to people for off-plan property that was remarkably overvalued – much of it remains unbuilt. It was the major causal factor behind the ongoing recession in which Ireland currently resides.
But why do you call the “bubble” a pyramid scheme? Pyramids are illegal.
The actions of the Irish financial instutions in encouraging further borrowing when they should have been tightening lending criteria, led the market from what would typically be considered a bubble, into one with more in common with a pyramid scheme. The availability of easy credit to those who would not normally have been able to achieve it promoted unsustainable price increases, leading to a total disconnect between the product and the values put on it by ‘investors’. It is one of the criteria for a pyramid scheme.
A pyramid scheme is only considered illegal in Ireland if it can be proven that there is an element of ‘having to sign up new investors’ in order to maintain the scheme. You could argue that banks did this in a subtle manner, but it would be a stretch.
The use of Irish financial institutions and the Irish property market as an example (and there have been numerous others around the world such as Bulgaria and Spain) was merely to point out that, just because an institution is seen to be legitimate, does not mean that some of its actions cannot be extremely detrimental to the financial wellbeing of an individual and, indeed, a nation as a whole. It was an attempt at widening the whole ‘Caveat Emptor’ philosophy beyond companies like Banners Broker.
In any case, this is deviating somewhat from the whole point of this article which is, of course, Banners Broker and their current actions in the Irish market.
99.9% of Irish people dont understand the direct selling or multi-level marketing concepts.The one word that springs to their lips is “pyramid”.
Pyramid is used as a catch-all term to describe everything not seen to be “normal” business models.Pyramid this,pyramid that,pyramid everything.
Even legitimate businesses like Amway,Avon,Kleeneze etc are universally labelled as “pyramids”.
Give them a break.
Nice work Diarmaid. I found your article on a Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Banners-Broker-Ponzi-Scam/398614356881465
Hey Diramaid, looks like the inevitable has happened and Banners broker is no more. Paul McCarthys email address no longer works, the office phone just rings out and the website has vanished along with everyones money. Mastercard pulled out of the scam last week and it now looks like the whole thing has collapsed.
Oh dear. Inevitable, as you say, but nonetheless very distressing for anybody who’s given them money and can’t get it back.
This is in a similar vein, sadly without the coloured panels:
http://www.bankontraffic.com/
Hopefully people will now be wise to these ponzi schemes and stay away, if they are looking to invest money there are plenty of good options out there aside from that crap, just this week, i found a great investment opportunity, probably the best i’ve seen in years, i did all my research then went for it and thats what you need to do.
Guys,
Just to say that Banners Broker Ireland and Maconne are all very much alive and well down here in Cork.
http://www.maconne.com/
Paul McCarthy.
Hi Paul, good to hear you’re doing well, we were worried.
I take it you are guaranteeing that all the estimated 15,000 Irish investors in Banners Broker will get their money back?