A BRIEF STUDY IN CASH-GIFTING CONTRASTS: The Attorney General, The BBB — And Hank Needham (Before The Club Asteria Brainstorm And CONSOB Probe)

In this June 2008 video, Hank Needham -- later to emerge as a Club Asteria principal -- counts out a stack of £20 British notes delivered in a cash-gifting scheme. Using the pronoun "we" without defining who "we" was, Needham told viewers that "we" intended to open a cash-gifting "school." About three years later, Club Asteria positioned itself as an online "education" leader. In a March 2008 cash-gifting video, Needham was featured counting out a small stack of U.S. $100 bills. What was needed, Needham coached, was "training" on how to post cash-gifting videos on the Internet. Prosecutors say cash-gifting is illegal. The BBB calls it a pyramid scheme. In May 2011, CONSOB, the Italian securities regulator, blocked promos for Club Asteria in Italy. Needham has called himself a Club Asteria owner, and Club Asteria had described him as the director of sales and marketing “responsible for establishing Country, Regional and Network Team Leaders."

In this post, we included a March 2008 Dailymotion video of Hank Needham — later to emerge as one of Club Asteria’s purported owners — hawking a cash gifting scheme in which five $100 bills (U.S.) spilled out of an envelope tucked inside an envelope delivered by overnight courier DHL. (Please note that March 2008 video also appears on a separate site. The date notation on that site is May 2008.)

Another cash-gifting video from Needham — this one  dated June 2008 — has surfaced. In the June 2008 video, Needham is holding an envelope from FedEx, another overnight courier. “Now, we have another [envelope] — I won’t really go through the courier — I don’t think we’re supposed to use this courier anymore,” Needham tells viewers, after making sure they notice what he describes as a “little pile of cash that’s accumulating” to his left.

As the June 2008 video proceeds, Needham removes cash that has been packed snugly in the FedEx envelope. It’s British pounds as opposed to U.S. currency this time — and this time the money has come from “Robin” (or Robyn?) in the “British Isles.” Unlike the March (and May) 2008 video in which “George,” presumably an American, is reported by Needham to have sent five large U.S. bills, “Robin,” presumably a Brit, has chosen to send 25 twenty-pound notes. Needham counts out all 25 bills, creating five rows with five bills in each row. Why Needham was reluctant the mention the name of FedEx was not made clear in the video. What was clear was the Needham wanted viewers to know that “we’re opening up a website called CashGiftingSchool.com.”

He did not define “we.” The “school” website, which appears to have been registered in April 2008 while Needham was pushing the AdSurfDaily scheme in addition to cash-gifting, now resolves to a page that beams ads. (It’s worth noting that Needham, in 2008, was wearing casual attire while hawking the cash-gifting “school,” apparently from his home. Flash forward three years to 2011: Club Asteria is positioning itself as an “education” leader and featuring Needham on video. He is wearing a crisp, black suit in the 2011 video — and the backdrop is a board room. A button promoting the 2011 Club Asteria video in which Needham is showcased in the black suit is labeled “ABOUT COURAGE.” The button appears in Club Asteria’s October 2011 recruitment house organ.)

Various Club Asteria-related entities have been trading on the names of various charities, including the American Red Cross. The Red Cross sent the purported Asteria Philanthropic Foundation a cease-and-desist letter 11 days ago, and the relief agency said yesterday that the foundation agreed to stop using the Red Cross  logo and other materials. How long it will take the Asteria-themed enterprises to comply is unclear.

Needham’s image also appeared in 2008 promos for AdSurfDaily, an autosurf the U.S. Secret Service called an international Ponzi scheme.

The Attorney General

Before you take a look at the June 2008 Needham video — which appears to have been placed on Dailymotion just two months before the spectacular seizure by the U.S. Secret Service of tens of millions of dollars in the ASD Ponzi case — we’d like you to take a look at what the attorney general of Michigan says about cash gifting. Bill Schuette notes that purveyors can be charged with felonies. Mike Cox, Schuette’s predecessor as attorney general, said the same thing.

Needham does not mention the law in either of his videos; he’s too busy counting bills. He appears to be less than pleased that “Robin,” unlike “George” in the other video, packed the bills tightly. It is unclear in either video whether DHL or FedEx left the envelopes in a secure place before Needham retrieved them. In other words, had the envelopes been left on Needham’s doorstep, they could have been stolen, an outcome sure to have created an unpleasant situation for both the senders and Needham.

The BBB

Now — to accent this brief study in contrast before you view Needham’s June 2008 cash-gifting video — take a look at this brief video on cash-gifting fraud by the Better Business Bureau:

Hank Needham


The CASH PROOF by hankneedham

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6 Responses to “A BRIEF STUDY IN CASH-GIFTING CONTRASTS: The Attorney General, The BBB — And Hank Needham (Before The Club Asteria Brainstorm And CONSOB Probe)”

  1. He is wearing a crisp, black suit in the 2011 video

    Perhaps he bought a whistle with the monkey he was sent?

    More Hank nonsense, this time snake-oil:
    http://hank.stemtechbiz.co.uk/home.aspx
    StemTech claims to “activate stem cells in bone marrow” or some such nonsense. “Invented” by a “Christian Drapeau” who was “Quack of the Week” here:
    http://bayblab.blogspot.com/2007/10/quack-of-week-christian-drapeaustem.html

    Hank’s phone number has a “01858” area code which is assigned to Market Harborough. This matches the address that was used at one time on http://www.club-asteria.com WHOIS.

  2. Thanks for those, Tony. Good grief.

    Patrick

  3. Quick note: It just struck me that both of these cash-gifting videos must have been made on the same day: Needham is wearing the same clothes in both videos, and the backdrop is largely the same. (The image on the computer screen in the background appears to have changed.)

    I’m now thinking that the videos perhaps both were made in March 2008, maybe sooner. The dates on the DailyMotion sites appear to be the dates the videos were uploaded, not recorded.

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5allz_what-is-all-the-fuss-about-cash-gif_news

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5bsea_the-cash-proof_school

    Patrick

  4. Hank wasn’t the only one pushing the cash gifting scheme. Andrea was right there along side him. She just didn’t make any video’s to my current knowledge. And she was also in ASD along with Hank. Quite the pair wouldn’t you say?

    Quite the contrast from the Director of the World Bank image.

  5. Let’s see… http://web.archive.org/web/20080430131747/http://www.cashgiftingschool.com/

    Has links to ptigift.com (with Hank’s email address there and a +44 phone number, Nigerian style), and to ministryofcash.com at the time.

    CashGiftingSchool.com was itself a frame around http://www.cumada.com/?ref=gifting
    while MinistryOfCash.com was a frame for http://www.overnightcashexplosion.com/cashjoy/dwp3.asp?refsite=MOC
    both websites long associated with tax evasion and pyramid scheme activity.

  6. It seems Mr. Needham has progressed to the ability to use tools; he used a letter opener!!!!!!!