Parent scammed out of £250,000

[scamchild]

Posting here for traffic but I guess it is aibu in some sense as I have no idea what to do.

This is the 4th time my parent has been scammed out of a large sum of money. This time an inheritance lump sum.

She's a Covid denier. She thinks banks can't be trusted and will collapse and a complete conspiracy theory freak. I'm wondering if she is mentally unwell given she's done this 4 times.

She's given £250k to "coinbase" and "gold" only it's a "gmail" account. And written in bad English. And various other things. I can't get an answer out of her. How much? When? Why? How? She's confused and seems to think she's only lost a small amount but also says she has nothing left. So £250k is gone. She communicates to scammers on "telegram"

Help me!!!! I literally dont know what to do.

Called bank and they are useless. They will only deal with her. The password she gave me for bank doesn't work! I've called action fraud but have limited info.
She lives a flight away so I can't meet her easily.

Bumping as mumsnet hid my thread all weekend! Help!

She sounds like she's unwell - has she been tested for alzheimers etc? If not then very lonely and fearful.

I'm not sure you can recover the money if she's willingly handed it over.

She's just told us she thought she was in love with the scammer. She's been buying phones and sending them to Africa. She thought this bloke would come over and they would live together forever living off the proceeds from crypto.

This is the 4th time I know that she's done this.

All the money has gone (an inheritance she received) PLUS we've just found out that it's been going on for years before this so in reality she's been sending this guy money for over 5 years..

It's literally 100s of thousands of pounds. If I had to guess maybe 300-350k.

Police are involved now. But quite useless.

Shes refusing to see a GP.

I should add, she lives far away (still in uk) and is a very difficult character indeed. She's a conspiracy theory believer and highly religious. She's made herself lonely over the years by being very tricky indeed

I think you need also to get social sercvices involved as she is a danger to herself.

Does she have capacity?
Honestly I have watched various programmes where women in particular get scammed out-of often large sums of money ,it doesn't mean they don't have capacity to make that decions though sadly .

They can only fo something if she doesn't have capacity
Sadly lots of people fall for these big scams and beleive they are " in love" with the scammer .

I'm not sure. She managed to hold down a job (she had to go back as she is so poor now, even though she is elderly)

She seems mentally ok.

She's very depressed and lonely. She's bitter and angry about a divorce that happened 20 years ago.

She has zero friends. She's pushed them all away with her oddball behaviour and beliefs.

She seems forgetful but I think it's just her covering her lies.

But the OP said She is thinking she is mentally unwell.... As there are other signs , I woudl try every possible angle if it was me !

It's hard to think someone is mentally well (has capacity) would give away this large amount of money in what very clearly was a scam (the same scam as she fell for before)

Report to the police.

make a complaint to the bank. Banks do have some responsibility if there is fraud, coercion or abuse. Escalate to ombudsman if they don’t address it.

social services as well, especially if you’re not close. The earlier they are involved the sooner they can safeguard.

i’m in the middle of the same. Except it was a relative that offered to “help” in lockdown. Took their cards to do all their shopping then escalated to emptying their bank accounts monthly. Relatives were convinced there was nothing wrong because they were being taken out regularly and bought stuff if they needed it.

hundreds of thousands gone.

unfortunately the grey area is if they’re competent they do have the right to make these payments. Get every authority you can involved to ensure they are competent and that it isn’t financial abuse or coercion. I would see if you can get POA or third party authority and get any savings tied up so she can’t immediately get at it.

This happened to a relative of mine.

Also 'tricky character' - meaning someone who is totally convinced that they are always right and listens to no-one.

Just because someone makes terrible decisions (all the time) does not unfortunately mean they lack capacity.

This can be separate to them having mental health problems (which my relative also had) - there are times in acute phase of a mental illness that someone may lack capacity but even then this is fluctuating capacity.

I think this is her problem to solve. I would not be getting involved or be sympathetic in any way. Low/no contact is the way to go.

The police do usually have a section dealing with this sort of thing; they came and spoke to my relative and were more sympathetic than I was, but ultimately were clear that as it was an overseas crime nothing could be done.

Yes I get that and it must be Incredibly frustrating ,but there are known scammers that play on people's vulnerabilities ,there is a sereis on BBC I player ( I think ) with Kim Marsh ,so many people being scammed
And yet they carry on doing it because they beleive they are " in love"

If she's religious does she have religious leader that could come and 'counsel' her?

She might listen to them.

No advice just support it sounds really hard

The thing is with power of attorney the person has to agree to it,whilst they have capacity to do so
Both myself and my sister have power of attorney for our parents who are both 82 it was something my parents set up a few years ago just in case they became incapacitated
Currently they both have capacity to make their own financial decisions.

Unfortunately being a conspiracy theorist isn't a mental illness (it should be!) and it also doesn't make her vulnerable. I have very wealthy family who are down this rabbit hole and it's scary to watch but there is absolutely nothing we can do.

Often these people turn away from religion (my relatives have) because their "truth" and the cultists who run this "truth" tell them religion is evil and bad and not to be trusted. If you try and talk them round their group think persuades them otherwise. These people aren't vulnerable they're just lacking intelligence and have found a group of people who tell them they're smart and revolutionary.

Yes. If you can get them to agree to it though the current LPA kicks in immediately, they don’t have to be declared incompetent to use it.

if she will agree to it, you can at least have oversight of accounts and alert the bank to any fraudulent payments. Social services will need to be involved to decide if she’s competent.

I think if she knows they’re fraudulent/a romance scam, and wants to sent the money anyway, that’s her choice. Greyer area is if she’s competent but doesn’t realise these people are scam artists and genuinely believes them, then that comes under a victim of fraud or whatever and agencies can step in to try and stop it.

Does she realise she's been scammed?
Is she still sending money?

I'm not disagreeing with you its just such a grey area and scammers get away with it all the time

Being mentally unwell is not the same as not having mental capacity and somebody who hasn't got the capacity to look after themselves may still have capacity to deal with finances. I would get in touch with social services and ask for a welfare assessment. It all has to be done legally, it's not a simple case of someone being allowed to go in and taking over her finances.

I absolutely recommend speaking to social services and going down the route of seeing if she can be deemed as not having mental capacity and getting a power of attorney over her finances.

I would see if she will make a claim with her Bank - it is very unlikely she will get any money back BUT they should have done some kind of checks if she’s sending that level of money. If she went into branch they’d have asked questions, if she done it online then there’s sometimes certain checks they’ll do. But if she willingly did and and ignored all the Bank warnings it’s unlikely they’ll do anything. Can push to the FOS if you’re really not happy with the outcome.

But I sadly think you need to be prepared that money isn’t coming back and you need to address the next steps of her care.

There’s some great info here https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/making-decisions-for-someone-else/mental-capacity-act/

Ask to speak to bank fraud department about their vulnerable adults policy. If she has been scammed before such large transactions should be flagged, especially if the receiving account is in Africa.

@JohnMajor funny enough she's stopped going to church. She said she doesn't agree with the pope (his views on gay people) but still believes in Jesus.

Although she's stopped going to church (presumably she's a Catholic), could you speak to her priest with your concerns? If he's a good priest, he will still want to care for her even though she's left his church.