Brother has swindled DM out of over £100k- desperate advice please

[Unicornfairysoap]

Sorry I’m posting in aibu for traffic.

this is long, you may remember such threads as brother Pretended to dying DF to be in the navy to get money, pretend to be in mi6, threatened me with a multi billion £ law suit for saying he doesn’t have a PhD (he literally doesn’t, so it’s a stupid lie)

well DF died a few years ago and it’s been just dm, she lives 2/3 hrs away from my, brother lives closer. She works part time (20hrs a week) and gets my dads old pension and hers, which I’ve totalled as around £3.5k per month (no mortgage just bills). She’s been frequently crying to me she’s not got any money, I thought she was having me on a bit, but I had suspicions brother had claws in. Well she was visiting yesterday and broke down from not being able to pay her bills, she just kept repeating she’s not earning enough now, which she clearly is. The bills were only a few hundred too and she’s not the type to ask for money. I got quite concerned, and I noticed constant phone calls and texts coming in from brother. Now he’s the type that doesn’t contact unless he needs or wants something.

she went to the loo, and I snooped. I know it’s a total break of trust but I was genuinely concerned. I saw a list she’d wrote to him when he was telling her she was dead to him because she couldn’t give him £4k at the drop of a hat. The list went from 2019-2022 (so not even the last 18 months) and it detailed how she’d given him £120k over that time. He’s been going on luxurious holidays in that time. In a legal dispute with his ex. But he’s taking her to the cleaners and im genuinely worried. I looks like pure coercive control and an abusive relationship.

thing is i can’t tell her I looked and saw what I saw. She won’t take kindly to me calling social services or the police to talk with her, it will likely push her further to him.

shes 73 and he’s taken probably £150k at least

https://helpdesk.uksv.service.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/s/

That’s the helpdesk page for the vetting agency, you could drop them an email and explain the situation - just for their awareness as I don’t believe for a second that your brother’s actually in the process for getting a clearance, but on the very outside chance he is then his behaviour will totally stop him getting one. You could also probably make a report to Action Fraud: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

Oh, and you can set most smartphones to block calls from withheld numbers!

There’s a few other legit places that call from withheld that she’d need though but I’ll definitely be contacting that service desk

Service desk said they never call out to applicants family.

i’ll add pictures from the contract

Your brother is basically a con artist.

I’d be considering requesting a non molestation order for controlling and coercive behaviour and harassment.

Just thought… if he genuinely were being vetted, not only would you have been contacted directly by the government, but your mum, too. And it would be irrefutable. They are thorough with the process. I agree that you should hand everything you have to the police now, because it’s fraud, on many levels. Not just conning your mum, but falsifying government documents and falsely claiming to be a government official, pending or not.

That’s jail time.

That help desk above said that they never directly contact applicants family though.

no doubt that is it fraud though, that’s about the one consistent thing here

Authorized? With a z?

I've had to do the vetting due to a family member getting a job in Westminster (civil service, not government - saying government in itself sounds dodgy as that would be a political appointment presumably?). I can't remember how we got the form (it was my DH's family member, but we both had to fill in a form if I recall, just with our details like DoB, previous addresses etc) but absolutely no cost involved to us or the family member. I took ages and meant they couldn't start the job for months, but didn't have to pay anything.

Sorry don’t understand?

Well that correlates to what the chap on the phone said, they don’t call out to peoples family

@Unicornfairysoap , @Didsomeonesaydogs is right. In the UK, "authorised" is spelled with an s. "authorized" is the USA version. Just checked in my own work documents (I work in a local authority) - definitely authorised. Looks like your B has stitched and pasted from an American or Australian website/document. Having read the response immediately above - I agree. Saying "government" would be where someone is trying to be discreet or shady. Sadly likely to be the latter here.

As @REP22 says, in the pic the word “authorized” is an Americanised spelling. Any British Government department would spell it with an s. I’m a writer and editor so errors like this jump out at me.

Here’s the gov.uk style guide for publishing documentation.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/style-guide/a-to-z-of-gov-uk-style

Having had another look at the pic, I think perhaps National Insurance should also be capitalised.

Yes! I didn’t even pick up on that! Great spot!

in fact any UK company would surely use UK spelling wouldnt they

I just want to say that I love it when Mumsnet goes into detective mode.

Yes, most UK-owned companies would use British English spellings, but many Americanisms have crept into our everyday written language due to most websites being written for USA traffic (way more eyeballs!). Which is possibly why it didn’t register for you.

You absolutely wouldn’t expect to see it in communications from any level of Government agency though.

And National Insurance is always capitalised.

Another great spot!

If that job offer document was produced by a UK government department, I’m Stephen King.

Get done photos of what your brother has been writing. Get copies if you can of bank transactions. Go to the police in any case. Ask them what can be done. See if a power of attorney managed by a legal professional could be an idea.

I’d actually say even any legit business, the second screen shot just says £64000 annum not per annum, pretty basic typo there and when combined with the other things, looks like a modification of an American document found online

The one positive thing about these fake documents and the phone calls is that they definitely make HIM look like a fantasist in a deluded state, I.e., not someone whose word/claims can be taken at face value.

That helps you demonstrate that your Mum needs to be protected from him…the more nutty he sounds the better.

Civil servant here with various levels of vetting. I didn't pay for mine, I had to provide family details as part of it however they were contacted via email and asked to compete forms online, never by telephone without prior agreement.

Also we aren't paid fixed salaries like that, we have a salary range and new entrants usually start on the minimum. My contracts usually state the minimum salary for the range and explain about pay progression. Pay isn't reviewed annually either, it's done as part of collective bargaining done by Unions for ALL Civil Servants.

I've worked in various departments and I've never known anyone to be paid on any date except the last working day of the month.

Also Project Managers tend to be short term roles either filled on fixed term appointments (not permanent) or by contractors which again aren't permanent. I've also never seen a contract that doesn't specifically say the job title plus the specification of the project in the title and then list team/division and indeed the grade of the role I.e EO, HEO, SEO so on and so forth.

So I'm calling bullshit

Disgusting