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.

So in 24 hours you have gone from just finding out, her getting a job and the police being involved on a Sunday/Bank Holiday?

I have a friend in similar circumstances to you, only in her case the relative not only gave all her money to a scammer but also sold her house and flew to his country to meet him. It is awful how little can be done if the person has capacity. I'm so sorry you are in this position.

In my experience intelligence isn't a factor, but loneliness is.

"Police are involved now. But quite useless."

Way to go, deflecting from the real issue at hand.

The police arent miracle workers - they can only work with the information provided. Ergo, if they are usless OP, then the info they've been handed is equally useless.

@Spirallingdownwards

Yup. I called police Scotland yesterday morning. And they went round her house yesterday evening.

I'm not making it up?!

There's little they can do. It's being investigated.

That's not the issue here is it. Poor wording on my part. They are limited on what they can do. I assume it's an overseas crime too. Which makes things even harder

She's clearly vulnerable and you need an assessment to see whether she has mental capacity - she needs to be able to hold all the relevant facts in her mind to make a decision, including weighing up the odds that she's being scanned. Variability can be searching specific too - so she could handle doing her shopping but not have capacity to handle huge sums of money. She can have capacity and still make bad decisions but it doesn't sound entirely clear whether she understands she's been scammed? It sounds a little like she's living in a fantasy world and not engaging in real life?

Honestly I would speak to social services.

How do you conclude they’re useless? They saw her yesterday, do you expect them to have solved the whole crime by now?

there are things they can do. It will take time, and will be hindered if these people are abroad. But the police have big departments that deal with this, the officers you saw are beat officers taking a report, which will be passed on to the specialist investigators. They will likely also refer to multi agency specialists and safeguarding. Give them a chance at least.

@Runningbird43 this is not a thread about police. They have acted fast but they can really only help the person affected. I'm not near to the person. They are limited on what they can tell me. There is a limit to what they can do.

I don't think we can do anymore with the police than we have done. We've reported it. That's as far as we can go.

Unless this has happened to you you won't understand the frustrations of trying to act on behalf of someone. It's incredibly difficult.

This is very good advice. If you've tried all other avenues and got nowhere as she has capacity, a religious leader might be the only person she would trust who could influence her decisions

Sorry, just seen your update about she's not going to church anymore. I can sympathise as we have the same issue in our family but police and social services have not been able to help as he's deemed capable of making his own decisions.

I don't know what you can do about it tbh OP, it will be very difficult to get the money back.

Does she believe he still loves her? There's a YouTube channel called Social Catfish that has loads of these types of stories - could you show her something like that?

Some people seem far more susceptible to being scammed, maybe through naivety or loneliness. Unfortunately some people become so invested in the scam that they just cannot allow themselves to believe they've been conned yet again. She sounds like one of them. Being isolated from everyone around you makes it much easier because the scammer develops a relationship and becomes all the victim has in the world. Through loneliness you suddenly get showered in attention by a scammer and it almost becomes like an addiction because having to admit there is no investment and your money has gone is too much to bear and it is easier to keep convincing yourself otherwise because the scammer has spent months or years gaining your trust so they wouldn't possibly be lying, would they? Yes she's an idiot if it's not the first time but unfortunately people like her almost want to be scammed and will actively ignore all the advice to stop sending money because they are so invested. Your mum has been an absolute dream come true for scammers and frankly needs to keep away from the internet for her own sake. The money is gone and she is never going to see it again. To be blunt it's probably for the best that she has no money left to keep giving away because nothing else would ever have stopped her.

Have a look on this site https://www.scamwarners.com/ they see these scams all the time and may be able to offer advice to try and get through to her.

It strikes me that a therapist might be able to help her. And perhaps she might be convinced to see someone to talk about the divorce, which would then lead into discussion of relationships, and these scams.

Not sure if she would be able to afford to see one now though?

Power of Attorney has to be applied for by the person themselves, in this case the mother. So if she doesn't agree to it then it's off the table as an option, unfortunately.

We have applied to power of attorney. That was done several months ago by her. We've chased it this morning. I have no idea it takes this long. We just kept getting told "we will call you back later about that"

Sadly since this has been going on for so long, the money pot was depleted a while back. So getting it a bit sooner would not have helped.

She seems to have little remorse about it. She's weirdly emotionless.

It's bizarre. Almost like she wants to be scammed.

This is so hard. When can you next visit?

She sounds like she might be struggling and disconnected in some way

There are companies that help with this sort of stuff but I can't remember for the life of me what their called.

There's one that advertise on LBC radio regularly, there may be a link to their advertisers on their website.

Good luck

If this is the attitude/approach by your parent, little wonder then, that the police are not able to do a fat lot about it.

While you said in an earlier post that this not about the police - if so, then why call them??

Makes no sense. I feel sorry for the police being roped into something like this with information provided that has proved useless. A complete waste of police resources that could be better utilised elsewhere given the demeanour of your blase parent....🤷‍♂️

You made it about the police saying they were useless on no basis. I was explaining their process and that they need time.

if you read I have been, and am going through this, only it’s a relative doing the scamming not an unknown.

@HelplessSoul well I reported to police because a crime has taken place. Someone pretending to be someone else/bitcoin etc has gained enough trust from a vulnerable person for them to send money.

Last time I looked, these scammers were still criminals.

I don't feel sorry for the police. It's literally their job to help people and solve crimes

@scamchild

No one is asking you to feel sorry for the police.

But it is rather two-faced of you to call them for help in an awful situ like this, then slate them as useless, because the info provided to them by you was also useless.

They cant help you if what they have been given to work with is a load of crap or not substantial enough.

Its NOT the job of the police to create the evidence. 🤦‍♂️🙄

There was an item on This Morning last week where this had happened to someone, it was only on for background noise for me so don't recall the detail but there was a lot of advice. Might be worth seeing if you can find it.

Good god @HelplessSoul read what I said about poor wording on my part. It's a useless situation. There is little that can be done beyond what has already. It's frustrating. Even the best police officer in the world couldn't solve this. The money won't be returned ever. The situation (with the fraud not occurring to me) and help available is very limited. And I'm frustrated.

Stop hyperfixating on a single word. Mumsnet is full of people like you that hyperfixate on one word. I just read a thread where someone took offence to the word server vs waitress.

The thread is not about police. We reported the crime. They are very limited in what they can tell me or indeed do. The whole thing is very frustrating.

I should add THANKS to those that have offered actual useful advice and not childish rolling eye emojis.

The therapist is one idea. Social services too and I've been digging out stories to show her so she finally gets that this is all an elaborate scam. I'll show her pictures of the type of people she has ACTUALLY been talking to. I read one story that said kids are being trained to start these scams.