AdMob Banner ads not being hidden

I successfully integrated the Google Play and Admob plugs for Unity, however once a banner is created and displayed, I can’t hide it. No matter where I call HideBanner the banner remains, even going so far as to put it in Update and let it call over and over again…it still remains.

The Ads are being handled by an empty gameobject that persists across scenes. I even put a button on screen then when tapped calls HideBanner and still the banner remains.

Also this may or may not be related, but the banner doesn’t appear when my app starts, instead it only appears after the scene is reloaded.

This is my code if someone can offer some help. The Adhandler game object starts out in the main (first) scene and another script in the main screen calls ShowAd. When the next scene is loaded, HideAd is called but nothing happens, i get the debug.log that HideBanner was called, but the banner just stays there.

// Use this for initialization
void Start () 
{
	DontDestroyOnLoad (this);
	adMob = GetComponent <AdMobPlugin> ();
	adMob.CreateBanner (ADD_UNIT_ID, AdMobPlugin.AdSize.SMART_BANNER, false, "", false);
	adMob.RequestAd ();
	adMob.HideBanner ();

	hideTheBanner = true;
	hidden = true;
}

// Update is called once per frame
void Update () {

	//if HideAd was called and the banner is currently displayed, then hide the banner
	if (hideTheBanner == true && hidden == false)
	{
		Debug.Log ("hiding banner");
		adMob.HideBanner();
		hidden = true;
	}
	//if ShowAd is called and the banner is hidden, then display the banner
	else if (hideTheBanner == false && hidden == true)
	{
		Debug.Log ("showing banner");
		adMob.ShowBanner();
		hidden = false;
	}

}

// Called by other GameObjects to show the Banner
public void ShowAd ()
{
	hideTheBanner = false;
}

// Called by other GameObjects to Hide the banner
public void HideAd ()
{
	hideTheBanner = true;
}

// Test button to force the banner to close (tapping this does nothing however)
void OnGUI ()
{
	if (GUI.Button (new Rect (Screen.width-150, 0, 150, 150), "Turn off Banner"))
	{
		hideTheBanner = true;
		hidden = false;
	}
}

You can hide banner by call
Admob.Instance().removeBanner();
to remove admob banner
ref https://github.com/unity-plugins/Unity-Admob#5custom-admob-banner-ad-sizes