A program that has been running for just over a year is Club Asteria. We have been monitoring this program and feel it has run its course. Anyone joining at this late stage we believe will lose their investment. Here’s why:
For anyone to receive back just the amount they invested into Club Asteria will take approximately 42 weeks (just over ten months); in some cases even longer. This is because they only allow you to cash out 20% of the amount earned, while 80% has to be retained in the program. This timeline will depend on what level (silver or gold) you are a paid member, or if you become a National Distributor.
They claim to have over 300,000 members, but do not identify how many paying members versus non-paying members they have. We have serious doubts about them having 300,000 members as we believe these numbers were inflated to convince people this is a vital and going program. We also believe that they only have about 90,000 paying members at most, which are not enough paying members to sustain this program much longer.
We do not see any outside revenue for Club Asteria to continue to pay the members their stated return each week. This stated return has been decreasing each week for the past three weeks. The only payments seem to be from new paying members joining, which is a classic Ponzi scheme.
To try to keep the number of new members joining Club Asteria, they have had to extend their monthly bonus program from March to now May. This is a sure sign this is in trouble. Any program that is a viable and real would not have to continue their bonus program to sustain itself.
Another sign we see this is in trouble is the last updates from the founder/CEO Andrea Lucas, is warning the members who are non-paying, they will be going to a paying membership only. Once this is implemented, which will have to happen very soon if they are to survive for even a little while longer, will drop the membership number dramatically. This will hurt them being able to recruit new members into the program. Those who are free members have been receiving passive income from the program. This has been an albatross around Club Asteria’s neck. They really thought the vast majority of the free members would become paying members for the additional income they would receive from doing so. This did not happen.
Another major red flag to us was the heavy promoters of Club Asteria have now moved on to their next “big thing.” They have removed all references in their E-mail signature lines about Club Asteria, and have stopped posting on the financial forums encouraging people to join. When they do this, the program is on its way down. One of the sure signs this is about to implode.
Toss in the principal’s behind Club Asteria have been part of previous scams as active promoter’s and members, inflated bio’s, and outright lies about Andrea Lucas’ position with the World Bank twenty-six years ago, also were major red flags this is not what it claims to be.
They are not licensed or registered to do any of the programs they claim they are doing for the good of humanity. They initially claimed they were a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. When that was shown to be a lie, the reference magically disappeared overnight. Even if they outsourced these programs, they do not provide the names of the organizations they are using to perform these programs. Another tell-tale sign they are not what they claim they are. Stop and think for a moment. If you were a vendor providing these services to Club Asteria’s members, wouldn’t you want them to know the name of your company? So why doesn’t Club Asteria identify them?
Club Asteria has never been a real investment program, despite all their claims and charitable works they claim they are doing. It has been all smoke and mirrors from day one. Every Ponzi program can pay for a period of time, just not continue to pay for an extended period of time as they run out of enough people joining to keep it going for a little while longer. All Ponzi’s collapse because they run out of people joining.
This is where Club Asteria is today in our opinion. We are just surprised that it lasted until now before it closed for good. The only thing that has gotten them this far was the March bonus program. The April bonus was not successful enough, so they had to extend the bonus for May hoping this will keep them afloat a little while longer. Whether this makes it through this month, next month or even June, it is going to collapse.
Anyone joining now will lose their investment. There is not enough time for you to get back just what you invested, let alone any profits. As always, it is your money, and you can do with it as you see fit. Just don’t be shocked when this disappears overnight because it will.
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