World Equity Group

Broker Preston Runyan in World Equity Group, INC. Firm Has Customer Complaint

November 8, 2025 | by Staff Attorney

Currently financial advisor Preston Runyan (Runyan), currently employed by brokerage firm World Equity Group, INC. has been subject to at least one disclosable event. These events include one customer complaint. According to a BrokerCheck reports most of the recent customer complaints concern either corporate debt securities or alternative investments such as direct participation products (DPPs) like business development companies (BDCs), non-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs), oil & gas programs, annuities, and private placements. The attorneys at Gana Weinstein LLP have represented hundreds of investors who suffered losses caused by these types of high risk, low reward products.

FINRA BrokerCheck shows a settled customer complaint with a damage request of $40,000.00 on August 24, 2022.

Claimant alleges, Respondent, through their registered representative, failed to conduct reasonable due diligence and continuously recommended an investment strategy almost entirely comprised of speculative and illiquid private placements such as real estate investment trusts (‘REITs’). Rep been a Registered Representative with WEG since 2008. Claimant asserts legal claims for unsuitable recommendations, material misrepresentations and omissions, failure to supervise and violation of FINRA rules and seeks compensatory damages of approximately $40,000, punitive damages, pre and post judgement interest and attorneys’ fees and costs of action.

Broker Carlos Cortez in World Equity Group, INC. Firm Has Customer Complaint

November 6, 2025 | by Staff Attorney

According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker Carlos Cortez (Cortez), previously associated with World Equity Group, INC., has at least 19 disclosable events. These events include 19 customer complaints, alleging that Cortez recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.

FINRA BrokerCheck shows a pending customer complaint with a damage request of $11,500.00 on September 06, 2022.

Client invested in a cryptocurrency fund that was recommended by the Advisor. The fund turned out to be a fraudulent investment.

There are Recent Customer Complaints with Broker John Stitt in Firm World Equity Group, INC.

November 2, 2025 | by Staff Attorney

According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker John Stitt (Stitt), currently associated with World Equity Group, INC., has at least one disclosable event. These events include one customer complaint, alleging that Stitt recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.

FINRA BrokerCheck shows a settled customer complaint with a damage request of $606,000.00 on December 14, 2022.

Claimants state that they were recommended by the Respondent (World Equity Group, Inc.) to invest their retirement funds in a prudent and suitable manner, Instead Claimants state they were recommended to invest in unsuitable and illiquid alternative investments (Non-Traded REITS) specifically in Hospitality Investment Trust (HIT) approximately between 2014 and 2018. Claimants state they were advised to hold the investments and eventually HIT’s bankruptcy came into picture. The claimants suffered a near complete loss on their investment in HIT.

Broker Charles Taylor in World Equity Group, INC. Firm Has Customer Complaint

October 22, 2025 | by Staff Attorney

According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker Charles Taylor (Taylor), currently associated with World Equity Group, INC., has at least one disclosable event. These events include one customer complaint, alleging that Taylor recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.

FINRA BrokerCheck shows a pending customer complaint with a damage request of $2,200,000.00 on January 03, 2023.

Respondents Recommended Third Party Administrators Who Stole Nearly all the Plans’\, Savings; Respondents did not Report any of it. Claimants are reporting failure of fiduciary responsibility of the Mr. Taylor and World Equity Group, Inc who is the employing broker dealer of Mr. Taylor

There are Recent Customer Complaints with Broker Arthur Mcpherson in Firm World Equity Group, INC.

October 16, 2025 | by Staff Attorney

According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker Arthur Mcpherson (Mcpherson), currently associated with World Equity Group, INC., has at least one disclosable event. These events include one customer complaint, alleging that Mcpherson recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.

FINRA BrokerCheck shows a pending customer complaint with a damage request of $250,000.00 on June 02, 2025.

Claimants [REDACTED] suffered substantial investment losses as a result of a negligent market-timing strategy employed by Respondent McPherson, a registered representative of Respondent World Equity Group, Inc. (&amp;amp;quot;WEG&amp;amp;quot;). McPherson liquidated the [REDACTED]&amp;amp;#39; investment portfolio in March 2020 at the very bottom of the &amp;amp;quot;Covid crash&amp;amp;quot;, then bought back in to the market after the market had already rallied and recovered. If McPherson had simply maintained the portfolio, instead of trying to time the market, Claimants would be several hundred thousand dollars better off than they are today.\<char_lb_r>\, If he had simply maintained Claimants&amp;amp;#39; accounts as they were, instead of trying to time the market, Claimants would be several hundred thousand dollars better off than they are today. The charts on the following pages illustrate the impact that the flawed market-timing strategy had on Claimants&amp;amp;#39; wealth.\<char_lb_r>\, Initially the Claimant had filed the arbitration against both the Rep Arthur McPherson and the associated BD World Equity Group, Inc. Subsequently the claimant dismissed all claims against World Equity Group as the related Client/claimant is not a client of World Equity Group.\<char_lb_r>\, World Equity Group was dismissed from this arbitration on August 01, 2025

There are Recent Customer Complaints with Broker Daniel Garvin in Firm World Equity Group, INC.

June 28, 2025 | by Staff Attorney

According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker Daniel Garvin (Garvin), previously associated with World Equity Group, INC., has at least one disclosable event. These events include one customer complaint, alleging that Garvin recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.

FINRA BrokerCheck shows a settled customer complaint on November 16, 2023.

The Statement of Claim alleges that the alternative investments recommended to claimants were unsuitable for them in light of their age, need for liquidity, and risk tolerance. It also claims that the investments were misrepresented to the claimants causing them significant damages. The investments in question were made from January, 2015 to February, 2015.

World Equity Group Alleged to Have Sold Private Placements Without Proper Due Diligence Part III

March 20, 2015 | by Staff Attorney

This post continues our firm’s investigation concerning the recent allegations brought by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) sanctioning brokerage firm World Equity Group, Inc. (World Equity) concerning at least seven different allegations of supervisory failures that occurred between 2009 through 2012. FINRA’s allegations include failures to implement an adequate supervisory system and concerned both internal processes at the firm and procedures and in the handling of customer accounts in the areas of suitability of transactions in non-traditional ETFs, private placements, and non-traded REITs.

FINRA requires firms preserve for at least 6 years all communications relating to its business and to provide for ways to store electronic media. FINRA found that in May 2011, the World Equity opened a new branch office at 311 W. Monroe Street, Chicago, Illinois. FINRA alleged that errors in the process of transferring several representatives at that branch to World Equity emails of the representatives were not maintained and preserved before April 13, 2012. In addition, FINRA found that the firm failed to maintain business related emails for ten representatives who used their personal emails for business purposes.

FINRA also alleged that World Equity failed to conduct due diligence in connection with private placements offering from July 2009, through January 2012. During that time FINRA alleged that the firm conducted at least eight private placements including a product called Newport Digital Technologies, Inc. (NDT) and sold more than $6 million in these offerings. In addition, FINRA found that from August 23, 2010 to July 17, 2012 the firm conducted at least five Non-Traded REIT offerings and sold more than $3 million in these offerings.

World Equity Group Supervisory Failures Explored Part II

March 18, 2015 | by Staff Attorney

As we previously reported, The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) sanctioned brokerage firm World Equity Group, Inc. (World Equity) concerning at least seven different allegations of supervisory failures that occurred between 2009 through 2012. These failures included failures to implement an adequate supervisory system reasonably designed to detect and prevent potential rule violations concerning both internal processes and procedures and in the handling of customer accounts in the areas of suitability of transactions in non-traditional ETFs, private placements, and non-traded REITs.

FINRA alleged that World Equity failed to implement an adequate system to ensure the suitability of Non-Traditional ETFs. As a background, Non-Traditional ETFs are registered unit investment trusts or open-end investment companies whose shares represent an interest in a portfolio of securities that track an underlying benchmark, index, commodity, or other instrument. Shares of ETFs are typically listed on national exchanges and trade at established market prices. Non-Traditional ETFs are different from traditional ETFs in that they return a multiple of the performance of the underlying index or benchmark or the inverse performance.

Non-Traditional ETFs may use swaps, futures contracts, and other derivative instruments in order to create leverage to achieve these objectives. In addition, most Non-Traditional ETFs are designed to achieve their stated objectives in one trading session. Between trading sessions the fund manager generally rebalances the fund’s holdings in order to meet the fund’s objectives. For most Non-Traditional ETFs the rebalancing happens on a daily basis. Further, because the correlation between a Non-Traditional ETF and its linked index or benchmark is inexact there is typically tracking error between a fund and its benchmark becomes compounded over longer periods of time. In addition, the tracking error effect becomes more pronounced during periods of volatility in the underlying index or benchmark. FINRA advised brokerage firms in June 2009 due to the effect of compounding the performance of Non-Traditional ETFs over longer periods of time can differ significantly from the performance of their underlying index or benchmark during the same period of time and because of these risks and the inherent complexity of the products, FINRA advised broker-dealers and their representatives that the products are typically not suitable for retail investors who plan to hold them for more than one trading session.

World Equity Group Fined $225,000 Over Supervisory Failures Part I

March 17, 2015 | by Staff Attorney

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) recently sanctioned brokerage firm World Equity Group, Inc. (World Equity) alleging that between 2009 through 2012, the firm failed to implement an adequate supervisory system reasonably designed to detect and prevent potential rule violations including: (1) failure to preserve emails; (2) failure to establish and maintain account records and obtain suitability information; (3) failure to implement a supervisory system to ensure suitability of transactions in non-traditional ETFs; (4) failure to properly document adequate due diligence in connection with private placements and non-traded REITs; (5) failure to establish an adequate supervisory system for the review of activity for options activity in unapproved accounts; (6) failure to have a reasonable supervisory system to ensure compliance with Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933; and (7) failure to adequately enforce information barrier procedures.

World Equity is a full service broker dealer and has been a FINRA member since 1992. The firm is based in Illinois and has approximately 160 brokers operating out of 68 registered branch offices.

One of the offerings FINRA investigated at World Equity was Newport Digital Technologies, Inc. (NDT). In 2008, according to FINRA, World Equity hired a new syndicate manager by the initials MN to lead the business line out of the firm’s Spokane office. During MN’s tenure as syndicate manager, World Equity was involved in several private offerings including the NDT offering for which the firm acted as the placement agent. NDT had been registered with the SEC since 2000 and originally was known as Golden Choice Foods Corporation and then as International Food Products Group, Inc. (IFPG). These companies were in the consumer food business until December 2008.

Atlas Energy Oil and Gas Investments: Risks Investors Should Know Part II

December 17, 2014 | by Staff Attorney

This article follows up on a recent article reported in Reuters concerning Atlas Energy LP’s private placement partnerships in oil and gas. Atlas Resources LLC, a subsidiary the energy group, has filed documents with the SEC for Atlas Resources Series 34-2014 LP stating that it seeks to raise as much as $300 million by Dec. 31 of 2014. The deal allows investors to participate in investments where advances in drilling technology have turned previously inaccessible reservoirs of oil into viable prospects. In addition, Atlas promises to invest up to $145 million of its own capital alongside investors.

In the last article we explored how the house seems more likely to win on these deals over investors. But beyond the inherent risks with speculating on oil and gas and unknown oil deposits most investors don’t realize the deals are often unfair to investors. In a normal speculative investment as the investment risk goes up the investor demands greater rewards to compensate for the additional risk. However, with oil and gas private placements the risks are sky high and the rewards simply don’t match up.

In order to counter this criticism, issuers say that the tax benefits of their deals where the investor can write off more than 90 percent of their initial outlay the year they make it helps defray the risk and increase the value proposition. First, the same tax advantage claims are often nominal compared to the principal risk of loss of the investment as seen by Puerto Rican investors in the UBS Bond Funds who have now seen their investments decline by 50% or more in some cases. Second, often times brokers sell oil and gas investments indiscriminately to the young and old who have lower incomes and cannot take advantage of the tax benefits.