UPDATE: Is Club Asteria Missing An Executive? Blurb For ‘Director Of Sales And Marketing’ Goes Missing From Website Amid Reports Firm Has Suspended Cashouts

A blurb for a key leader of an online “program” that claims to elevate people out of poverty globally has gone missing.

The blurb for Hank Needham, whom Club Asteria identified as its director of sales and marketing, appears to have vanished between June 19 and today. Also missing from the Club Asteria webpage that identifies its leaders is Needham’s photograph.

Club Asteria has not announced Needham’s departure. Why the blurb has been removed from the website was not immediately clear. Also unclear is whether Needham remains a Club Asteria employee and continues to hold an executive post at the Virginia-based firm, which trades on the name of the World Bank.

In general, companies announce the departure of a key executive long in advance of the departure for the purposes of maintaining continuity and stakeholder trust.

Needham, Club Asteria noted prior to the removal of the blurb, was “responsible for establishing Country, Regional and Network Team Leaders.

“Hank has 22 Years (sic) experience in building Sales Teams throughout Europe, United States, Asia and Africa with special emphasis in the Network Marketing and Communications Industry (sic),” according to the now-removed blurb.

In May, Club Asteria announced that its PayPal account had been frozen. There are reports today that the company has suspended member payouts for up to 60 days, but the company has not confirmed the reports on the news section of its website. Members have been grumbling on Ponzi scheme forums for weeks about drastically reduced cashouts from the firm.

Remarks attributed to Andrea Lucas, Club Asteria’s managing director, appeared on Ponzi forums today. Lucas was quoted as saying, “We have made the decision to accumulate revenue share disbursements for the next 30 to 60 days.”

Such a statement — if true — may signal that Club Asteria is having a serious cash crisis.

On April 11, Club Asteria announced on its news website that it takes “very seriously our responsibility to remain financially solvent.”

Many Club Asteria members preemptively claimed in promos for the firm that it was not operating a Ponzi scheme. The claims were juxtaposed against competing claims that a $19.95 monthly payment to Club Asteria could result in guaranteed earnings of $400 a week — nearly $21,000 a year for a 12-month outlay of about $240.

See story from earlier today.

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One Response to “UPDATE: Is Club Asteria Missing An Executive? Blurb For ‘Director Of Sales And Marketing’ Goes Missing From Website Amid Reports Firm Has Suspended Cashouts”

  1. Maybe related, the web site club-asteria.com was registered at one time to

    WHOIS Stats
    Registrant:
    Hank Needham
    PO Box 3
    Market Harborough, LEICS LE16 7GY
    United Kingdom

    Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
    Domain Name: CLUB-ASTERIA.COM
    Created on: 25-Jun-09
    Expires on: 25-Jun-11
    Last Updated on: 27-Aug-10

    Is it no wonder that they have lost “Hank”? It appears that “Hank” or “Henry” Needham is a bit confused as to his address. Maybe he is in the UK, or perhaps he is in Jamaica? Or Malaysia? Or Australia? Or Canada? Or South Africa? (He is associated with “STEMTech” with an addresses in various places). Perhaps he isn’t missing he is just lost, between addresses?

    It seems that he has been involved in cash gifting, ans is a member of ponzi criminal forums “dreamteammoney” and “rolclub”. He still lists CLUB ASTERIA on his web site, where he describes himself as “Co-Founder and Director of Sales and Marketing.”