Thread: Banners Broker HYIP ponzi scam

...just a little reminder of Jo Spencers posts on her facebook page BB DEALER:

TEN YEAR LEASE MANCHESTER.JPG

Its hard not to have a great sense of satisfaction now, in the decline of the bb scam.
Chris and Raj scrabbling with their head down, trying to cover their tracks. Deleting their twitter accounts, closing all offices, cancelling all ic's contracts, and dumping them. Trying to fake a seperation between SP and BB.
Heartening to see even the talkingbb sheeple in open revolt, and to see former cheerleaders regognising now that is is a ponzi, and is in terminal decline.
we will never again see Raj and Chris on a triumphant world tour, arrogantly pushing their "new google" to a sea of grey haired victims.
The pushers such as Paul McCarthy, who had not been known for scams before, will bear the stigma of BB fraud, and that blemish will always be attatched to them now.

Karma.

Report on mmg that Anonymous hit TalkingBB last night

Originally Posted by Della Cate

This is over at MMG (thanks again to Rooneyfenomeno)

Friday Q and A and Updates, August 16, 2013

Fraser
Welcome to the call. I apologise for the delay, we've had some technical issues today hand over to Chris

Chris
A few updates about our support situation. BB started 2010 with just a couple of in-house individuals who handled support. Then we had a need to use a management company, Stellar-Point, to take on the support of BB because it grew so fast. In 2012 we had situations with the system and needed a large amount of support. We had 90 people, for different back office areas including ticketing and live chat. We know the importance of support. Over time, we have reduced the amount of people on board. As we gave our support personnel more tools to fix problems. These tools were very expensive and they will transfer to BBv3. In recent months, we further reduced the staff as there was no need for them. We have also been trying to tighten our belts and make sure that all the corporate spending is necessary. We have also cut down on the world tours. That brings us to the next phase. We are going to put support in house (Belize office). The BB and SP contract has come to an end. There are now new people being properly trained within the Belize office and we are trying to increase the speed of getting answers to you. Please continue to submit your support questions.

Independent Contractors (IC's). BB does not have any offices worldwide. The IC's had their own offices and their contract was with SP. Therefore, the IC's will no longer handle support for BB. In the future we may look at the situation with IC's again.

Pay-outs: I've received feedback from leaders' that they would like to see when payouts happen. More visibility. We will be looking at that.

Version 3 will make sure that BB lives on. There will be activities for the affiliates to do, such as: Surveys, videos, helping other advertising agencies. We will be part of the advertising channel.

Mark: We've been through some trying times. Patience is wearing thin with some affiliates. Be rest assured that BB is making great strides to put things in place. Not only does Chris have the plan, we are coming up to four of the biggest months of the year for advertising. With this and all the new changes with V3, it will make a big difference. We are in a situation where all of us are in this together. We can sit and point fingers and get into that negative mode of thinking. All of the affiliates need to come together. There are 3 or 4 negative bloggers doing damage. There are 400,000 of us and if we focus our energy as a united front, think of what we could do. Chris is still there, he's not hiding. This company is strong, we will come out winners. The problem is not the problem, it's your attitude that's the problem.

There were a couple of questions about pay-outs. Fraser explained that the only person who could answer those questions was Chris himself who had left the webinar to go to a meeting.

So, hmm, let me see....

They are sacking staff;
Affiliates are still not getting paid;
But BB will live on........in future affiliates will have to do more, like videos and surveys (??what??)
And if all else fails, remember "the problem is not the problem, it's your attitude that is the problem" - BRILLIANT!

Now come on, devoted BB followers - if any of you remain - does this sound like a company that is soundly based and in it for the long haul? Or does it sound like a venture that has failed?

"There are 400,000 of us and if we focus our energy as a united front, think of what we could do".....what energy?...doing what?..swimming,running,jogging?..what other knowledge the united front has??...what could united front do really?..except taking a walk,ride or going in fitness room?...what do the real companies? - they sent people for occupational retraining...does Chris even care how looks the structure of knowledge the united front has?..the front that has learned and is trained to wait for miracles to happen..the front that is educated not to think with it's own head but rather to wait some wonder resolves all the problems...and now the army that wears only tshirts should reise over new horizons??..besides united front is one more dodge - numbers on the paper,in reality they all gone

Originally Posted by Jerrygo

Report on mmg that Anonymous hit TalkingBB last night

Perfect excuse for Iain & his gang of idiots to shut down TalkingBB. Surely it serves no purpose for these scammers anymore.

Originally Posted by Joe_Shmoe

Perfect excuse for Iain & his gang of idiots to shut down TalkingBB. Surely it serves no purpose for these scammers anymore.

Well he is banned from his own forum now LoL. The last believers will have nowhere to bolster each others fantasies now. Wonder who will be next on their list?

Originally Posted by Jerrygo

Well he is banned from his own forum now LoL. The last believers will have nowhere to bolster each others fantasies now. Wonder who will be next on their list?

The fact that at this point there are STILL people who REALLY WANT to believe that this dying Ponzi will make them rich if some small technical fixes are applied just beggars belief!

Example from Talking BB forum: "I don't want to sound negative, but......"

Priceless!

Face it people this is the endgame. There is NO business, never was.

You really couldn't make this stuff up.

I said this at MMG, here and a few other forum blogs back in January that BB died right after the big Christmas payout. The only problem was the members didn't know it, and didn't want to believe me. Not a big deal because they never want to believe me.

It is hard to get someone to accept the fact that they got duped, cheated, and their money stolen in a Ponzi. It is human nature to want to "believe," and we trick ourselves into believing the last strands of hope things will turn around and get better.

Now the whining, crying and anger will begin in earnest, but they are not going to praise any of us for warning them about BB being a Ponzi. In fact we will be the ones they blame the most while they are in the denial and anger stages.

The one statistic that sadly holds true is this one: There will be at least one suicide from someone involved in their Ponzi going bust; and that is the good news. Many times it is many more. I know of a few Ponzi's that there were five people who commited suicide.

There are going to be a lot of hurting people from BB's demise, and don't take offense when they lash out at you and are blaming you for BB crashing. All of us who have seen these events happen for a decade or longer have been hinting at the things to come to help prepare you for what is coming next. It is not going to be pretty, and like it or not, we are all going to be in the center of the firestorm that is coming; and be blamed for it. It is not the time for the "I told you so," even though we have been telling them for almost two years now.

My only reason for saying this is that I know some of you have friends in this that you have tried to warn them and they didn't listen. Support them in their time of need by just being there for them as a friend. They feel bad enough without you reminding them you were smarter than them. Just speaking from years of experience and seeing friendships destroyed over these matters because of ego's. For what it's worth.

Originally Posted by Jerrygo

Report on mmg that Anonymous hit TalkingBB last night

Forgive me for being dim, but who or what is Anonymous? Oh wait, is it a hacker's group?

Originally Posted by Della Cate

Forgive me for being dim, but who or what is Anonymous? Oh wait, is it a hacker's group?

Wikipedia anonymous

Originally Posted by Jerrygo

Wikipedia anonymous

Aha.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Jerrygo

Wikipedia anonymous

Very interesting indeed. Many thanks for this information. Excellent material for bloggers targeting off line groups. Bookmarked link.

Originally Posted by EagleOne

It is hard to get someone to accept the fact that they got duped, cheated, and their money stolen in a Ponzi. It is human nature to want to "believe," and we trick ourselves into believing the last strands of hope things will turn around and get better.

“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” - Mark Twain

And according to the Guardianuno over on MMG (thanks G!) some people are STILL trying to recruit others into BB....see quotation below:-

BB Changing people’s lives around the world!
Date: Thursday 15th August 2013
Please note this is a PRIVATE presentation for anyone in Paul Sweeney's team only!
Do not promote this event to any channels or people outside this team they will not be allowed in.

ALL NEW GUESTS WELCOME!!!
Registration: 7pm
Presentation: 7.30pm prompt start
Guest speaker: Duncan Wood
Top Income Earner!!!
Following the presentation receive training tips from Duncan with tips on how to explode your business !!
Venue
Guildford Golf Club
High Path Road, Merrow, Guildford, Surrey GU1 2HL

Guests FREE
BB affiliates just £5 on the door to cover room hire.


Please prior to the event :- Please call Paul Sweeney on 07932 172 020 or email paul@sweeneyuk.com to book your place.

The Guardianuno has also posted an interesting email from Richard Maude, another BB-er. It's quite a long post, so I won't reporduce it here, but here is the link - look for posting number 10684:-

Banners Broker - bannersbroker.com

In it, he berates people in his "team" for failing to manage their BB accounts. Here are a couple of extracts that will give a flavour:-

I can only assume that if you have stopped managing your BB account then you have done so simply because BB are currently not paying us and therefore believe that they will never pay us. With this in mind, I have to ask you...what actual business facts have you based that decision on??

Nothing in life is for certain but when I look at any business situation, I take out the emotion and look at the facts as they present themselves and this helps to minimise the risk of making bad decisions.

Yes BB aren’t paying us but we know the reason. They had a perfectly legitimate payment solution in the BB MasterCard but thanks to the bloggers, the card was suddenly taken away without any notice. If the BB card was still in place we would have all been paid by now...fact. Was the fact that the card was taken away BB’s fault? No it wasn’t and the CEO of Vector cards fought tooth and nail with MasterCard to get BB reinstated because they had done their in depth due diligence on BB and were 100% satisfied that BB are 100% genuine and that the decision of MasterCard was an incorrect one.


And again:-

Some of you may be thinking that they are not going to launch a payment solution. Well if you think this then you are assuming that Chris Smith and the others are simply massive fraudsters. Well again, nothing is for certain but is that really likely? They had a legitimate payment solution previously so why not get a new one? And why spend a fortune on launching BB version 3.0? If they don’t pay anyone then they don’t have a business so why do that??

I don't think there is anything I can usefully add to the above!

Apparently the latest on the dashboard. The blind network (remember, the core to their alleged business) is no more.

Only choice network (the laughable sites) campaigns can now be set up.

I wonder how Iain and his gang will spin this one!

Blind NetWork Campaigns

August 16, 2013, 1:23 pm

As of Friday August 16th at 4pm EST, we will be de-activating the Blind Network Campaigns. The Blind Network will be de-activated for the time being. We are developing a more robust advertising system to meet your advertising needs. For information will be provided when available.
Please Note: All unused impressions will be returned to your impression bank.
Thank you for your continued patience.

This may be a silly question but has anyone contacted mastercard themselves for their position.
I called their american head office back in about Oct 2012 and there was some discussion way back in this thread about mastercard endorsements....so we all know that mastercard received some helpful suggestions from concerned people back then :-) which has prompted mastercard to look in to bb.......these helpful suggestions to action were successful, obviously because mastercard ditched bb......well done you know who you are:-) ..............

HOWEVER, BB is still using the brand 'mastercard' to enhance their reputation........by blaming bloggers and saying that mastercard was 'sweet as' (great kiwi saying) with bb/vector as a company until negative blogging.........bb is STILL CLAIMING MASTERCARD endorsement ..........but now that us 'nasty bloggers' are seen as having superpowers enough to 'make' mastercard do this, rather than mastercard not wanting to be a part of a scam's money laundering processess????....really affiliates ? really????
anyways I digress....., I am thinking those same helpful people might want to alert mastercard to this 'business' using their brand in such a filthy way.....I think it is time they issued some form of press release maybe??? something to give the public mastercard's stance on "being happy to deal with bb/vector until blogging put them off" as opposed to a 'real' reason why a company as large as mastercard (a 'real' business) would discontinue business with bb/vector (a multimillioin dollar 'real' business?), no!!...no no no affiliates, no they probably don't make their business decision this way
The ONE THING bb has right is that Mastercard is unlikely to let the "3 or 4 negative bloggers out there ruin it for 400,000 bb affilates"...absolutely they are not !! multi millions?? think mastercard would probe a little deeper than that before deciding to ditch this bb they think is so freakin amazing? So can have mastercard issue an official statement?
I am quite confident that mastercard international will in fact have a ceo, he may be black or he may be white but she or he will be real, I am also quite confident mastercard international will also have some form of 'head of compliance' who will also be real and GOOD at their job (for a real company) so are thus able to and may actually want to make an official statement rather than blog back at us here.............again affiliates really??? really?
just some thoughts and wondering if this type of action may allow some of the victims to 'accept' this is a scam in time to action a chargeback
Kiwi chick

Also...are there any others reading this forum from New Zealand? If so I would appreciate you messaging me.....
and..............
can anyone tell me if there is a way to pursue those who boast that they have withdrawan the money they put in many mnay many many times over while promoting bb ........which is very definately NOT "sweet as" at all...kiwi

If Mastercard (or any credit card company) had to go after every low life associating its' name with their particular fraud, it would cost them millions of dollars and billions of staff hours.

Without a full criminal investigation, there is no guarantee they would be able to find out exactly who is behind the fraud.

Even then, if someone has just ripped off several hundred thousand people for several million dollars, it's highly unlikely they are going to be worried about Mastercard telling them to stop using its' name, much less have the Mastercard name removed from the thousands of blog sites repeating the lies started by the original fraudsters.

there was another reason for MC dropping cards, Vector Card Services (Nevada corp.) was a dissolved company at time when they issued cards and was never authorized by MC to print cards.
The underwriter for those cards was Choice Bank of Belize (almost every questionable online site uses that Bank for debit cards) if Choice bank did employ some company (Vector) to produce the cards they had to make sure that
company is on the approved MC vendor list and Vector was not, never had any license and in fact was officially dissolved company.

MC is refusing to give an official statement. If they do will make them look bad that they let it happen.


there was no fault of BB or bloggers for the end of those cards, BB noise just made MC to discover Vector.

Originally Posted by Della Cate

The Guardianuno has also posted an interesting email from Richard Maude, another BB-er. It's quite a long post, so I won't reporduce it here, but here is the link - look for posting number 10684:-

Banners Broker - bannersbroker.com

In it, he berates people in his "team" for failing to manage their BB accounts. Here are a couple of extracts that will give a flavour:-

I can only assume that if you have stopped managing your BB account then you have done so simply because BB are currently not paying us and therefore believe that they will never pay us. With this in mind, I have to ask you...what actual business facts have you based that decision on??

Nothing in life is for certain but when I look at any business situation, I take out the emotion and look at the facts as they present themselves and this helps to minimise the risk of making bad decisions.

Yes BB aren’t paying us but we know the reason. They had a perfectly legitimate payment solution in the BB MasterCard but thanks to the bloggers, the card was suddenly taken away without any notice. If the BB card was still in place we would have all been paid by now...fact. Was the fact that the card was taken away BB’s fault? No it wasn’t and the CEO of Vector cards fought tooth and nail with MasterCard to get BB reinstated because they had done their in depth due diligence on BB and were 100% satisfied that BB are 100% genuine and that the decision of MasterCard was an incorrect one.


And again:-

Some of you may be thinking that they are not going to launch a payment solution. Well if you think this then you are assuming that Chris Smith and the others are simply massive fraudsters. Well again, nothing is for certain but is that really likely? They had a legitimate payment solution previously so why not get a new one? And why spend a fortune on launching BB version 3.0? If they don’t pay anyone then they don’t have a business so why do that??

I don't think there is anything I can usefully add to the above!

Poor ol' Richard Maude.

He's either the worlds' biggest HYIP ponzi pimp or he's swallowed so much Kool-Aide his common-sense-ometer has been flushed down the toilet.

All it takes is "Chris Smith said" or "Banners Broker management said" and Richard takes it as being a "fact" or "proof"

I can't imagine any fraudster coming out and saying "we have only taken a six month lease on our new offices, because we don't expect to be around any longer than that"

Just as I can't imagine a situation where someone keeps running a multi million dollar fraud for ten years because he doesn't want to break his lease.

Yet, here we have poor Richard Maude trumpeting the fact Banners Broker "SAID" they took a ten year lease on Salford Keys as being some sort of proof it will be here "for the long run"

Richard apparently STILL lives in a world where if Chris Smith says it, then it must be true.

Some people really ARE easy to fool.

Originally Posted by littleroundman

If Mastercard (or any credit card company) had to go after every low life associating its' name with their particular fraud, it would cost them millions of dollars and billions of staff hours.

Without a full criminal investigation, there is no guarantee they would be able to find out exactly who is behind the fraud.

Even then, if someone has just ripped off several hundred thousand people for several million dollars, it's highly unlikely they are going to be worried about Mastercard telling them to stop using its' name, much less have the Mastercard name removed from the thousands of blog sites repeating the lies started by the original fraudsters.

I wasn't meaning mastercard go after bb, nor if bb would care, i was meaning that an official statement from mastercard would allow those who are naive something outside of bb to support those of us who try to warn others

Originally Posted by NikSam

there was another reason for MC dropping cards, Vector Card Services (Nevada corp.) was a dissolved company at time when they issued cards and was never authorized by MC to print cards.
The underwriter for those cards was Choice Bank of Belize (almost every questionable online site uses that Bank for debit cards) if Choice bank did employ some company (Vector) to produce the cards they had to make sure that
company is on the approved MC vendor list and Vector was not, never had any license and in fact was officially dissolved company.

MC is refusing to give an official statement. If they do will make them look bad that they let it happen.


there was no fault of BB or bloggers for the end of those cards, BB noise just made MC to discover Vector.

Hi thanks for that, yes i realise bloggers had nothing to do with it, that was my point, to have something written by ms for the die hard believers, to try and protect some victims, anyways thanks for your response...........yes that does make sense that ms would want to keep that 'slip up' to themselves.....but has anyone asked them though, they may want to distance themselves if their own ms customers became distressed about the constant referring by bb...

Well we are all misfits and spoilers, from the dark side. According to Iain Sherrif. Here his statement on his regained talkingbb forum.


"TalkingBB was hacked at 01.30 UK time 17/08/2013.

The forum staff have located the hacker account and the IP's used. This attack was a response to my posts (reproduced below) regarding behaviour on the forum under the present situation.


01/08/2013

It defies logic that people here cannot realise the knife edge position of BB, or any business would be in BB's position at this time, when faced with hurdles it has. I have always assumed (wrongly I know with hindsight) that all TBB members want BB to fall to the right side of the knife as time goes.

TBB is a good, probably the best, source of qualified information that exists. It can be that without discussion BUT that's not what the forum staff want it to be.
The forum rules are carefully placed to allow open discussion WITHOUT the forum being a harm to BB or to our own Affiliates businesses.
The rules will continue to be enforced and, though regrettable, if people don't want to follow them we prefer that they go somewhere else.

I will NOT allow TBB to be a source of harm. If it goes that way I would prefer to see all discussion removed and it become a pure source of information. The options would to be clamp down to an extent where the forum looses credibility or simply to close it all together. That would not be my decision but it would be a decision I would support given the wrong circumstances.


17/08/2013

It doesn't seem to matter how many times I (I'm not going to presume to speak for the other forum staff) say such as the post above from a few weeks ago it makes no difference.
No matter how many times I say/acknowledge that there are problem at this time : and that communication is crap : that we run the forum the way we do for a reason and that will NOT change it makes no difference.

To me today's webinar was crap, absolutely useless, complete waste of time. Yesterday's leaders call was good. I was very pleased to hear that I don't have to help support Stellar Point anymore. Today's webinar confirmed this information so it should have been good for you.

You should all know by now that payment information is going to come when it comes. Saying the same things about payments week after week is pointless and achieves nothing............both Chris and Affiliates!! The foundation precept of the forum means that the forum as a body will (until PROOF is given to the contrary) continue to believe that Chris is doing the best for us that he can, on payments as well as everything else.
Chris HAS to say something about payments because he would be castigated more for saying nothing. We do not HAVE to say anything.

It has been said quite a few times here, in webinars and in leader's calls that it time to "put up or shut up" or "draw a line in the sand", however it has been said the meaning is the same.................................

BB has issues. Affiliates have issues with BB.
If you don't believe the issues will be resolved because BB is real and Chris will find way it is time to accept that as fact and move on. I make no personal comment on whether that is right/acceptable or not but it is fact as far as my position within TBB is concerned.


I'll say again, TBB is here to help BB Affiliates achieve success with there BB businesses. It is NOT here to help Affiliates find a way to do anything else. Any Affiliate who does not believe BB and Chris has their best interests at heart and is trying to make this work does not see a future for their BB business and therefore does not need help from TBB any more.

I'm not going to go over this again in another few weeks. so..........

Take this as final advice.

Think about how you write what you post.
TBB will no longer accept posts written in a way that shows the poster knows they should not be posting what they are about to.
TBB will no longer accept posts written in a way that are purposely written to have double meaning as a way of disguising what the poster really thinks. We WILL assume the worst and act accordingly.
TBB will no longer accept posts trying to blame the forum rules for causing misinformation.

The forum HAS drawn a line in the sand. There will continue to be problems and issues for some time yet and if forum members can't accept that AND remain within the forum rules they need to move elsewhere.

There is plenty of free good forum software available to start another if you want to "speak more freely". I will help (with advice) setup another if that is what is wanted tho I will take no part in running it.

I am writing this post as me, Iain Sherriff. The rest of the forum staff may not agree with my feeling and position on the future. Any of the staff have the ability to delete this or to post their own views. I know and accept that this is not my forum, it is OUR forum that Paul continues to provide for our use. I have no more to say on this, it's been done to death as far as I am concerned.
I hope I have made my position clear.






This is my opinion based on the facts that I know. You need to decide for yourself wether I am right or not. I know the darkside will copy and post this and use extracts to twist my meaning. If they don't have any facts to twist they will stuff up anyway.........I don't care anymore. Time will show them to be a bunch of inconsequential missfits and spoilers.


All right thinking people know how devious and twisted the minds of these poor souls are. TalkingBB has always been a place were open discussion can be made UNDER THE PREVAILING CONDITIONS. TalkingBB is part of civilised society and all civilised societies have rules and conditions in place so they remain civilised."

Originally Posted by NikSam

there was another reason for MC dropping cards, Vector Card Services (Nevada corp.) was a dissolved company at time when they issued cards and was never authorized by MC to print cards.
The underwriter for those cards was Choice Bank of Belize (almost every questionable online site uses that Bank for debit cards) if Choice bank did employ some company (Vector) to produce the cards they had to make sure that
company is on the approved MC vendor list and Vector was not, never had any license and in fact was officially dissolved company.

MC is refusing to give an official statement. If they do will make them look bad that they let it happen.


there was no fault of BB or bloggers for the end of those cards, BB noise just made MC to discover Vector.

Unless I am mistaken, Vector Card Services just dissolved their US branch. They are headquartered in Oakville, Ontario and are still in business. Vector was started just prior to BBI and BBI was their first client and I am sure was started just to be BB's payment processor. Since the MC fiasco, Vector has removed any reference to MC and the Choice Bank from their website. Their partner now for pre-paid card services is a company called "i2c Inc." Looking at i2C we find that one of their partners is The Choice Bank in Belize.

Now, what are the chances that Chris has done a deal with Vector and i2C for their new payment processor. I'd say pretty good.