All skin folk are certainly not kinfolk, and for a group of Floridian churchgoers, this saying has never been more true.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Marcus Moon, a former Miramar insurance agent, has agreed to a civil money penalty after “predominantly targeting African-American investors of the Christian faith” and losing over $31,000 of their invested funds. Moon, who now lives in Falls Church, Virginia, with his wife, has not admitted or denied the charges against him, but he has agreed to pay a $31,080 settlement and disgorgement of $3,000 with an additional $158 interest, according to the Miami Herald. The disgorgement covers account setup fees Moon charged nine Black church ‘clients’ as disclosed in the complaint.
The SEC says Moon held a Series 6 license, which allowed him to buy or sell mutual funds, variable annuities, variable life insurance, unit investment trusts, and municipal fund securities. However, Moon was not licensed to buy or sell stocks nor allowed to give investment advice for profit. After being licensed in 2017, the SEC complaint details that Moon worked for “an SEC-registered broker-dealer.” According to the Miami Herald, that dealer was New York Life, which had offices in South Florida. In 2020, state records indicate that Marcus K. Moon registered Increase Financial Strategies, using his home as the business address. Later in the same year, after scamming other Black church communities, Moon changed the company’s name to INC Financial Strategies and would also operate under “Faith Financial Strategies” at times.
The SEC says the 49-year-old promoted himself through Increase Financial Strategies’ website and social media accounts as “a financial services professional offering broker-dealer and advisory services through Increase Financial for a fee.” In the company’s client agreement, Moon requested usernames and passwords from people to “access the account for the purchase, sell and management of stocks, bonds, ETF’s and mutual funds.” He signed up nine clients in less than a year. “Using the clients’ account access credentials to log onto their online trading accounts, Moon purchased and sold stocks in their respective accounts,” the SEC complaint said. “When one online broker-dealer shut down some of the clients’ accounts, after detecting that Moon was accessing those accounts and trading (instead of the account owners), Moon encouraged those clients to open new accounts at other online brokers.”
The SEC said those clients owned 18 accounts through which Moon “conducted hundreds of trades that resulted in approximately $31,800 in losses.” In January 2021, Increase Financial was dissolved, and in March 2021, New York Life fired Marcus Moon.