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.

Luckily my father in law is the opposite way- he thinks 'everything' is a scam . Even good old plain marketing spam - he thinks There is a reason he gets it- rather than just the fact it's random stuff-

Apart from reporting to police and bank and seeing if she will do a POA and maybe getting social services to do welfare check -there's not a lot else if she appears to 'have capacity'. I understand it must be frustrating if you and family are struggling and she's giving money away willy nilly- but I wouldn't give those vibes to police/bank/social services or it comes over as self interested (understandable) rather than concerned

In/out could be money laundering

Don’t banks usually freeze accounts with that level of suspicious activity?

Yes I was going to say that too. Lead with that info with the bank. They will be much more interested in that than any of the rest.

Friend of mine works for a high street bank. She had a young lad come in who realised he’d been scammed out of £5k.
He’d been trying to buy some very pricey trainers online. The payment hadn’t gone through and he got a phone call asking for the card details to try again. It ‘didn’t go through’ so they asked him to try a direct transfer. Then try the card again. And so on. Until he was down £5k.

He didn’t realise until the next morning and went into the bank. They told him tough luck. He had willingly handed over his card details and willingly paid money into their account. That’s his choice.

He argued (well his mum argued) that the bank should have noticed. He got £1k back as goodwill.

Just wanted to send sympathy and . My FIL has now been romance scammed at least 3 times that we know of. He keeps driving to major airports (which is terrifying as his driving is awful!) and then of course they don’t show and have some bullshit story, so he can give them more money.

He point blank refuses to admit he’s being scammed and won’t tell us how much he’s given them but we suspect it might be on the scale you are looking at. It’s an absolute nightmare, but he does have full capacity and there is nothing we can do about it.

I sympathise OP. Have a similar situation with an elderly relative who I have become (reluctantly) responsible for. He is incredibly mean with family and handing out large sums of money frequently to scammers. Really made me detest relative. Am managing it by confiscating bank card and have got a power of attorney in place. The whole situation makes me absolutely livid.

As an update, I spoke to her more. She still believes this man is real. "Because they have spoken on phone"

Apparently he's not African. I don't know how they did that but he's been taking money off her as recent as last week.

She's blocked him now she claims.

She's been sending him £200 a week for "food" via PayPal good god!

She says no one is taking money off me.... I'm giving it willingly.

She says she sent 10 or so phones (iPhones) to her contact in Africa

She said she didn't realise emails could be fake... she just thought they were all genuine

She said they are trying to get her to take loans out

Basically there is no hope... she's so sucked in

She almost seems annoyed she's been rumbled like I've ruined her fun

In this situation I'd be tempted to scam him myself, just to keep him off the bloody roads.

She almost seems annoyed she's been rumbled like I've ruined her fun

She will be - she'll have been getting high as a kite off the dopamine.

Is her bank registered with the CRM code (most are) if so, they can investigate and if she is considered vulnerable they can reimburse some/ all the money scammed from her.

If she is unwell (which sounds likely) you may need to speak to a solicitor to seek a medical and financial power of attorney. This will likely need to go through court.

This has become her reality, her reason for living if you like ,this 'relationship' must occupy her thoughts to the extent that anyone who questions it is just 'doesn't understand'. I think people who are difficult to be around or a a bit anti-social are sadly such easy prey.
It will take a great deal of effort to get her to face up to the truth and I wish you luck & strength OP

Age UK is another great resource as they will have loads of resources and advice for you. Best of luck, and a big hug x

When my late aunt started to make unusual payments to a church, i asked the bank to ring me before any transactions went through that were over about £50 and they did so i could block them if needed.....church only managed to get a few hundred then stopped asking her.....not sure what this church was or is but was the result of someone knocking on her door one day.

Please also check the land registry. A friend of mine in her 50’s got scammed (also in Scotland and also socially difficult ) by a guy who befriended her (platonic) then sent threatening texts from a different mobile / email pretending to be a third party trying to blackmail her. The “new friend” suggested she sign over her rental properties to them for “safekeeping” so the blackmailers couldn’t get their hands them. She has lost 4 houses and only retained one of them as her ex husband was still on the deeds. Police can do nothing as she willingly signed the houses away. They know who the guy is and it’s not his first rodeo. This was an in-person scam not online. She is highly educated

You need to get power of attorney

My aunt lost her home and everything her late husband left her by falling for a relationship scam.

We’ve told her again and again it’s all a scam, but she is still stupid enough to believe that a young, rich airline pilot has fallen in love with her and wants to marry her (she’s in her 60s, never worked, no hobbies, why the hell would a rich young man be interested in her ffs!) and we suspect is still falling for this shit and sending any small monies she gets now on to either him or another similar scam. I’ve stopped communicating with her as she won’t listen and I’m not prepared to put up with her lies / requests for money any more. Police did try, but all based abroad so can’t do anything.

It's really awfully sad that people are so desparate for 'something in their life' that they fall for this kind of really obvious sizzle.

Makes me realise that it's important to have interests and friends as you get older if you find yourself on your own as it's nearly always single people that fall for this stuff , rather than older couples

Goes on for years but family does nothing.

Who is more stupid ? the family or the old biddy ?

In law making an unwise decision is not a definitive factor in lack of capacity, it's a complex area. There are independent capacity assessors but honestly I'm suspecting she's on the road to loss of capacity

@likethislikethat

Well I'm not stupid. She has lied time and time again.

Also there is little we can do.... apparently it's the same scammer that did her before. She went back for more. Because she was lonely and he flattered her.

In theory she looks like she has mental capacity, she works and drives and has said she willingly sent this money to her boyfriend and contacts via PayPal, cash, fake accounts etc.

She shows little remorse for her actions and said there's no point getting cross about it.

I can't really tell her how to spend her money. The law, banks etc is not on my side sadly.

Do I think she will do it again... yes, yes I do

I’m sorry OP that’s awful :( I have lots of experience with scams as I work in financial services and we find with these customers when they are absolutely adament that they want to send this money. It’s also difficult when the person has capacity as Banks are legally quite tied!

Have you told her it looks like money laundering? If she allows it to continue knowing this she could easily find herself in legal trouble. There will be criminals at the other end running the scam.

We should be running government sponsored old school 'information broadcasts' on TV breaks between stuff that over 50s like to watch, and I hate to say it but on things like GB News, plus leafleting through the door. The young women on things like the Tinder swindler I have no time for- they were just greedily looking for a well off bloke for lifestyle reasons and got sucked in - there were huge amounts of red flags and they all had full capacity.

We need to educate Not just dating type scams, but 'services' , banking fraud, - all types of digital and door to door fraud.

Not everyone will listen or take notice because for some I think it gives them a 'lift' ata point life seems flat and they like the drama, but if it makes 'some' think twice - then it's worth it.

I also don't think banks should be refunding if these people have been alerted, warned and have gone ahead and done these transactions of their own free will. We all end up paying for that

Mad that you say that when that old Covid “conspiracy” of the vaccines causing more injury than they help is now being revealed as true. The Astra venica vaccine is being halted as of today due to excess deaths and class action law suits (you’ll soon find that it killed far more than the 80 they’re downplaying it to be). “Conspiracy theorists”/truthers are not nut jobs, we just have far more common sense than you followers.