Caribbean Bridge Review: $150 Ponzi vouchers

There is no information on the Caribbean Bridge website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Caribbean Bridge website domain (“caribbeanbridge.com”) was registered on the 14th of August 2014, however the domain registration is set to private.

Upon visiting the Caribbean Bridge website for the first time, the following message appears:

The message is in Russian and appears without any input from the visitor.

This strongly suggests that whoever is running Caribbean Bridge is based out of Russia.

Supporting this is Alexa’s current estimate that some 83.5% of all traffic to the Caribbean Bridge website originates out of Russia.

As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money.

The Caribbean Bridge Product Line

Caribbean Bridge has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market Caribbean Bridge affiliate membership itself.

Caribbean Bridge affiliate membership grants access to a booking portal, through which hotel reservations in the Dominican Republic can be made.

The Caribbean Bridge Compensation Plan

The Caribbean Bridge compensation plan sees affiliates invest in $150 vouchers.

Each voucher creates a position in the Caribbean Bridge compensation plan, with a $1 daily ROI paid out on each position for 365 days.

This is the standard ROI contract period, with extensions possible as per the following qualification criteria:

• each recruited affiliate (minimum 2) signed within 30 days of joining adds an extra month of ROIs (up to 12 additional months)
• each recruited affiliate must invest the same or more than the affiliate who recruited them

Investment Referral Commissions

In addition to the ROI paid out, Caribbean Bridge affiliates are also paid when recruited affiliates invest.

Voucher referral commissions are paid out via a unilevel compensation structure.

A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any level 1 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates of their own, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.

If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

Caribbean Bridge cap payable unilevel levels at seven, with commissions paid out as a percentage of the $150 voucher fee as follows:

• level 1 – 10%
• levels 2 to 7 – 1%

Residual Commissions

In addition to referral commissions on voucher investment, Caribbean Bridge affiliates can also earn residual binary commissions.

A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a binary team, split into two sides (left and right):

Positions in the binary are filled via direct and indirect recruitment, with each subsequent level created by splitting the previous level’s positions in two.

An affiliate is paid daily on the investment volume of the weaker binary side, with how much of a percentage paid out determined by personal investment volume:

• Promoter (invest in up to two vouchers) – 2% of the investment volume in the weaker side
• Silver (invest in up to six vouchers) – 3% of the investment volume in the weaker side
• Gold (invest in up to thirteen vouchers) – 5% of the investment volume in the weaker side
• Diamond (invest in up to twenty-seven vouchers) –  7% of the investment volume in the weaker side
• Black Diamond (invest in up to twenty-eight vouchers) – 9% of the investment volume in the weaker side

Note that to maintain binary qualification, a Caribbean Bridge affiliate must also recruit and maintain at least two affiliates with open voucher positions.

Also note twenty-eight is the maximum number of active vouchers a Caribbean Bridge affiliate can have at any given time.

Leadership Bonus

The Leadership Bonus is a monthly cash bonus available to affiliates, subject to the following qualification criteria:

• join Caribbean Bridge as a Gold affiliate, and generate $10,000 in referral investment within 30 days of signing up = an extra $500 a month till the end of the voucher contract
• personally rank as a Gold affiliate or higher, have a weaker binary side investment volume of at least $100,000 and personally recruit at least two Gold ranked affiliates = an extra $2000 a month till the end of the voucher contract
• personally rank as a Diamond or higher, have a weaker binary side investment volume of at least $500,000 and personally recruit at least three Diamond ranked affiliates = an extra $2500 a month till the end of the voucher contract
• personally rank as a Black Diamond, have a weaker binary side investment volume of at least $1,000,000 and personally recruit at least five Black Diamond ranked affiliates = an extra $5000 a month till the end of the voucher contract and an “apartment in the Caribbean”

Note that each voucher contract is twelve months from the date of investment.

If an affiliate qualifies during the contract period, the bonuses above are paid out only on the months qualified (till the contract expires).

Joining Caribbean Bridge

Affiliate membership with Caribbean Bridge is free, however affiliates must invest at least $150 to participate in the income opportunity.

Conclusion

The frontend ruse with Caribbean Bridge is that it has something to do with tourism in the Dominican Republic.

This might be true to the extent that bookings are possible through the platform the company provides access to, but ultimately has nothing to with Caribbean Bridge’s compensation plan.

All that’s happening here is positions are being invested in for $150 a pop, with annual ROIs paid out of subsequently invested funds.

This qualifies Caribbean Bridge as a Ponzi scheme.

No doubt helping to prop up the scheme are the expected affiliate fees Caribbean Bridge collect from hotels who feature on their platform, but that obviously won’t cover the ROIs, referral commissions and various bonuses offered.

Affiliate investment in vouchers will be the primary source of revenue for the company, therefore also providing the bulk of funds paid out.

As with all Ponzi schemes, once affiliate recruitment slows down Caribbean Bridge will find itself unable to meet its ROI obligations.

Being annual contracts it’s likely that Caribbean Bridge will string affiliates on, with them only realizing the scheme has collapsed when they attempt to withdrawals.

Being a binary-based scheme, a lack of activity company-wide should will correspond with a lack of new invested funds entering the scheme.

Expect this to happen well-before the first annual ROI payments are due.