Hello there,
i find Affected sites include:
BlueBayPTR
Seeking-Cash
GrapeBizs
UltraCliz
Amity-Cash
StrawberryBizs
I too have been a member of em for 3 or 4 years... many when they started minimum payout at $1, then it went to $3
for weeks i had some php error when i went to withdraw... now i get exactly the same error as you.... note the page withdraw.php redirects you to which gives out that new error (ban.php)
As an expert of PTR (for nearly 10 years) I know exactly the problem many of these decent PTR sites experience...
The thing with these sites which give decent 1/2c search mails is the potential earnings they now get from the search engine advertisers.
Where you make your searches there was a time when each link you click on in a search page the "bid" amount was 1c.... this means for every click the advertiser pays 1c (to the search engine account holder aka the PTR owner) which makes them a tidy profit from only having to pay YOU (the PTR Site member) 1/2c of that...
Now you look at these sites you do paid searches on... theres very few advertiser links to click and the "bid" value on most of them is barely even 1/8C. This is due to the fact that advertisers would rather pay to advertise somewhere like google or a bigname search engine (and get decent results) than pay a "portal" search engine which people are paid to click on links (thus the advertiser gets very little for their money)
The knock on effect has certainly dented PTR sites that pay 1/2c for searches... Lets take DolphinPTR (I am the top earner on that site with over $200 made from me reading emails, and over $100 from my referals), years ago once you reached cashout you would be paid within 48 hours guaranteed... but over the past year (since the money made from "Portal search engines" by the PTR site owner is less) there has been queues of 200+ people waiting to be paid, which can literally take weeks if not a month or 2 to actually pay you... enevitably whats going to happen is theres going to be constant debt on these sites... which will be evergrowing until the payment waiting queues are over 1000, thus making the sites simply "fold"
Going back to sites mentioned above including "BluebayPTR" they were opened by people who live in places like China who are not allowed on paid to search websites. So instead they open their own wesbite... accept us, uk, canada members to do these "paid portal searches" for them and simply pay them a cut of the earnings... they paid reliably for many many years because they wanted to show they were a fully paying website and keep members "searching" for them because quite simply at the time weather it was $10? $20?$100? they were making profits themselves... now as i explained about concerning "portal searches" having barely any advertisers and amounts per link click being less there is next to no profit (in fact mostly a loss) to be made
now check this link:
http://bluebayptr.com/pages/beenpaid.phpits a hidden link but it simply shows who has been paid on the site... notice last payment was "02-08-2010"... but if the withdraw button isnt working then how is it possible?... Simple... they are still trying to pay people who requested a payout weeks ago (before the site errors started)
You should all do exactly the same as me and continue clicking and searching as normal until the end of the month... but if theres still no working cashout button by the beginning of march i would class these sites as dead and burried...
As for getting a reply from emailing them.... you have no chance... for starters the owners of these sites talk very little or no english at all and also i emailed some of thoese sites years ago wondering about something but to this day iv never heard a thing back..
2010 is a very sad year for PTR because i guarantee this year the industry in which we see 1/2c search mails will be dead and burried