Prosper DJ and wife accused of scamming Black people nationwide out of ‘tens of millions’ in ‘blessing loom’ pyramid scheme

Disc Jockey ASAP, aka Marlon Moore, greeted members on a Zoom call by saying, “You received an invitation here because someone loves you. Thank you in the chat. “

The meeting was for Blessings In No Time, a black-only community founded last year by Marlon and his wife LaShonda Moore out of their Prosper home. The Zoom greeting is documented on a member watchdog site.

Members were told that if they invested $ 1,400 (later increased to $ 1,425) and recruited two members, they would receive a “blessing” equal to eight times their original contribution – $ 11,200 (later increased to $ 11,400) – would “bless,” “or leave. Two recruits could be provided for new members to ease the process. If they ever wanted to quit early they could request a refund.

But the plan, which is too good to be true, failed in January after some BINT members said they not only failed to receive the $ 11,200 payout, but also not received a refund. The Texas attorney general said it had received nearly 200 consumer complaints about BINT alleging losses of over $ 700,000 since the beginning of the year.

Attorney General Ken Paxton this week announced a lawsuit against BINT LLC alleging it was a pyramid scheme to defraud “tens of millions of dollars from the African-American community in Texas and across the country.” On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission and Arkansas also sued BINT and filed a joint complaint alleging that some members paid up to $ 62,700 to attend.

“This is despicable behavior and BINT is being prosecuted in full,” Paxton said in a statement.

Paxton noted it was “curious” that the payment of $ 1,400 to participate in the program launched in June was in the range of stimulus checks sent to Americans by the federal government in May to help them during the COVID-19 pandemic to help.

Texas plans to freeze BINT’s assets and issue an injunction. Paxton’s lawsuit also calls for more than $ 1 million in civil penalties, consumer protection, and attorney fees and costs. The state did not contact the Moores before going to court for fear they would hide assets and destroy records.

The Dallas Morning News was unable to contact the Moores through social media or multiple phone numbers available in public records. Former BINT members say the Moores went into hiding in January, deleted their website and stopped communicating with them.

The type of fraud they are accused of is described by investigators as a donation circle, blessing loom, or illegal takeover of a sou-sou or informal savings club. In Texas, pyramid scheme operators face up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $ 10,000.

Reports of multilevel marketing companies and pyramid schemes on social media increased fivefold in the second half of 2020 amid the economic hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the FTC said.

“These scammers, specifically targeting black communities, used false promises of wealth to trick consumers out of money at a time when Americans could least afford to lose it,” said Daniel Kaufman, acting director of the Consumer Protection Bureaus of the FTC, in a statement.

The Moores are considered D-list celebrities, members say. Marlon was the Resident DJ on BET’s Show 106 & Park for four years. LaShonda used to be a real estate agent. In 2020, both appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Network’s reality show Family or Fiance, in which newly engaged couples bring their disapproving families together to decide whether to marry. They also started a nonprofit called Mogul Behavior that claimed to be a lifestyle accelerator but no longer exists.

Last June, the Moors founded BINT amid a pandemic that left many Americans in dire financial straits.

Shawn Nichols paid into the group after his Arkansas janitorial company suffered financially when businesses closed and were unable to use his services. His uncle told him about BINT, and Nichols pocketed $ 4,200.

“I don’t have a lot of money and I didn’t get anything back,” he said.

BINT also emerged amid a sharp rise in racist tension in the United States following the assassination of George Floyd during his arrest by Minneapolis police. The Moores told BINT members it was their way of dealing with pain. BINT published the “BINT Bible,” which stated, “All BINT members must be of African American descent. Absolutely no exceptions! “

One of the victims mentioned in the lawsuit claims that BINT used “the collective fear, grief and trauma experienced by Americans during and after the Spring / Summer 2020 riots to cheat over 8,000 blacks out of over $ 40 million”.

The victim, who was not identified in the lawsuit, brought six family members to BINT, resulting in $ 32,000 in total damage.

“Why should I think they would give a refund?” wrote the victim. “I believed that based on the well-documented refund guarantees from BINT founders and employees, we would get a refund.”

The BINT community was built through weekly zoom calls from the Moors. Members said they were encouraged to invite family members and friends, which created family rifts after the fallout.

“Bring them up. Inspire them. Do not worry. If you get them there, we’ll do the rest, ”said Marlon Moore on a taped Zoom call that also claimed that BINT had been circulated over $ 33 million in the past four months.

DJ ASAP (“Always Serve A Purpose”), aka Marlon Moore, and his wife, LaShonda Moore, perform in one of their Zoom members’ meetings.(Courtesy of BINTscam.com)

The Moores also expressed faith in their meetings. In a recorded Zoom video, a leader asked members to pray about whether they would leave the group and ask for a refund.

“It’s scary now that I am repeating the meetings in my head, how they involve God and claim to be so righteous just to blind everyone,” said Destinee Habersham, who joined BINT in September.

The 14-page BINT Bible also had a unique rule: anyone who posts about BINT on social media will be automatically banned from the group and forfeited the opportunity to request a refund. By stifling members’ ability to speak out, the Moores and their team were able to continue the fraud, the lawsuit said.

The members were organized into game boards with 15 spaces on each board, according to the FTC. Each board had four levels. The second level had four members who had to bring in eight new members – two each – to fill the first level. Once that first level was filled, the eight new members paid the $ 1,400 to the one member on the top level. That was the equivalent of $ 1,400 times eight or $ 11,200. Then the person who was paid would be removed, the board split into two bodies, and the remaining members would each move up one level.

The goal was to get to the top level where a payout of $ 11,200 was expected. The earning potential was higher, however, since each member could be represented in any number of bodies and up to three times in each body, say the members.

Late last summer, the Moores began a mandatory $ 85 monthly payment for members to use a new board optimization app, members say. The app was supposed to include educational materials on home ownership, credit, and emotional wellbeing, but this never came to fruition, members say.

While thousands of members asked for refunds towards the end of 2020, the Moores did not hide their opulent lifestyle, members say. The couple went skydiving in California for Marlon’s birthday in October and celebrated LaShonda’s birthday with a lavish party at The Joule Dallas Hotel.

In late 2020, members began surveying BINT, complaining that their boards of directors were stagnating. Others started asking for refunds.

The Moores informed members that there was a queue for refunds so they needed time to process the claims. Donald Fleming, a Mississippi resident, filed for a refund in November and has still not received one.

In a screenshot of a group message made available to The News and also to investigators, LaShonda informed members that the boards were not moving because members were “lazy” and relying on the BINT team to provide their recruits for the provided the lowest level.

“Fun Fact: BINT wasn’t an all-black group when we started,” wrote LaShonda. “In 2 weeks we decided to make everything black and get rid of everyone that wasn’t black. After 3 weeks we are a completely black group, WE STARTED PROBLEMS !!!! Let that marinate. “

A screenshot from the app shows that LaShonda closed 173 boards, which equates to at least $ 2 million in “blessings”. The Moors also had family members on the boards, according to members and what LaShonda said in a taped Zoom call.

Members and outsiders saw the Moore collecting payouts and imagined doing the same. And some members received payouts, which eased the concern.

“When you see that 8,000 people are part of a community, you believe what they say,” says LaWanda Williams, who received no money but knows some people in Tennessee who did.

In January, the Moores hosted a Zoom call saying that BINT is going through a reset and that members may receive partial refunds. After that presentation, members said they had never seen or heard the couple again. BINT has also given up its website.

The Better Business Bureau, which is helping with consumer complaints in North America, announced on May 10 that it had been reviewing a number of complaints about BINT and reached out to the company for information and documentation to properly register for business check in Texas. BINT had not responded by June 9th.

Jennifer Ferguson, 63, and her husband Charles, 71, heard about BINT from people at their church in Tacoma, Washington. They put their entire $ 34,200 savings in hopes of using the investment to pay for their home and build a more robust nest egg.

You didn’t get any money back. Their creditworthiness has dropped from over 700 to under 600 as they struggle to make payments on bills that were once convenient for them to pay.

“We put everything into it and ended up in a lot worse shape than ever before,” said Jennifer Ferguson. “Human life was LaShonda’s experiment. She used us for everything she needed. And I trusted her. “

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