Bought a Text link on Adbrite A TOTAL SCAM!

Wow I can not believe this.

I found a site that had about 5,000 uniques a day and 34,000 pageviews a day, they were selling a link for $3.90 a week so I decided to buy it just to try. The banner was placed in a good placed so I thought 5,000 uniques with a 5% ctr would bring around 250 visitors to my site so I bought the link and paid for it.

I started to see that I was not getting any traffic at all from the site so I went back to adbrite and now the site says that they onli get 10 uniques a day!!!

This is a total scam, not sure if I should contact Adbrite, the police or what!!

This is the site: gangstaname.com and this is the adbrite url: adbrite.com/mb/commerce/purchase_form.php?other_product_id=5445&did_splash=1

Please tell me what to do, it is not fair that you pay someone for traffic and they just rip you off.

 

should have checked it with alexa....

 

Well I bought the link because the stats came directly from adbrite!!

 

that's pretty shi**y.

you gave me a good idea though - SCREENSHOTS!

take screenshots of the "original" stats, then if it changes - BINGO.

thanks for the warning about this - i will be much more leary than i was.

i would contact adbrite, and explain what happened.

that is ALWAYS the true test of a QUALITY company - WHAT they do about it.

keep us updated please.

thanks.

 

Contact Adbrite

Site you advertised on may be getting the traffic reported by Adbrite but may be experiencing problems at the moment, ie. server crashed. Or they may have been manipulating their stats by running their ad code on another site.

Overall I think Adbrite is a good company, just be very selective about what sites you choose to advertise on. Since Adbrite is much more flexable on what kind of sites can use their service (pretty much anything goes, including gambling and porn) its up to you to choose the right type of sites for the right kind of traffic you want to advertise to.

Either way, contact Adbrite about your problem before you call them scammers on these forums.

 

I am not actually calling adbrite the scammer but if the seller does not have that kind of real traffic then the seller might be scamming other advertisers.

 

Yes, that site may be scamming.

 

If you are on the internet and trying to make a living.....get used to this sort of stuff. I just lost $1300 on Adbrite (only like 350 clicks for month) -- The site said the average click/day was around 450 people a day. I used multiple copy and sites during this period that was in the same niche as the site advertised on. You have to be careful out there.

 

Man... its 3.90 contacting the police over it is rediculous

 

This is the first I've read of anything related to Adbrite being involved with any kind of scam - they seem to be a pretty reputable company. I'll be interested to hear their response.

Sam

 

i've been using adbrite for a year now.
the traffic rating you get are prehaps just being updated when you saw it at '10' uniques

my site gets about 1000 uniques.
but during refresh, it'll just show 15 uniques
but the data will get better as the day progress

 

On one of the sites I run AdBrite on I get paid considerably more than that for less traffic. So it smells like Alexa manipulation to me.

Advertiser results vary. One of my advertisers has been with me for a year.

Others never repeat (sometimes I can tell their campaign probably isn't going to convert - not really the right niche).

Richard

 

So does AdBrite not really check the stats or did they manipulate Alexa? I would at least ask AdBrite because you don't know how many other sites this user has and he could be doing it to others.

 

AdBrite just republishes the Alexa data.

But they also provide the site's:

Repurchase rate
Conversion Score
AdBrite since

The first two are more useful.

You can also buy pay per click campaigns.

Richard

 

Wow, sorry that happened. You know the saying you get what you paid for....

It was either an honest mistake or a scam, at least you didn't loose more.

 

Yeah if you got scammed you got off cheap. Most scammers wouldnt waste their time on such low ticket fraud. Would definately be an amature.

I think you would be better off searching the web and sponsoring a forum or something. I personally feel that, a affordable ppc campaign and organic seo is the only way to go.

 

All of this may be true, but I'd think AdBrite would take some responsibility (or at least take some interest in knowing) if the Alexa data is bogus - even if they're just regurgitating it. Hopefully the OP will post here when he receives a response from them - I'll be interested to see how they handle it.

Sam

 

i think you did the right thing coming here and tell about what happen.

I signed up for adbrite a few days ago and its going pretty ok... if i would be fouled in some way i would at least tell other people so it doesnt happen to them.

its 4 dolars... i dont think you should phone the police or anything... maybe contact adbrite... they tricked you.. either on purpose or not they did.

 

You might want to visit adbrite again and read the TOS and disclaimers...

I do not think you were buying traffic but merely an ad placement.

Click through would depend more on the quality and relevance of your ad.

I imagine the traffic stats are not much more accurate than any others out there. Probably best to view them as estimates.

 

I just approved some ads for adult DVDs that I may cancel in the morning. They don't really seem appropriate for the sites' readers. I don't want a clueless advertiser pulling my stats down.

Richard