Father in law being scammed

[onethingafteranother3]

FIL was widowed about 5 years ago. Always been a bit of an odd sort but harmless enough. Over the past year DH has been getting very concerning phone calls and messages from him. Basically he’s been sending women money online for pictures/ videos. It’s all very disgusting but Dh thinks it’s because of loneliness. Anyway he’s losing money left right and centre, he’s sending these people up to £100 a time for pics/vids then they promise to come and meet him so he pays them money for transport. Obviously it’s all a scam and he’s falling for it every time. DH has had countless conversations about just staying away from these sites etc but what can we do? We’re seriously worried about how much he is being scammed out of.

What does he say when your husband talks to him? Does he believe him or does he get angry etc?

The main problem is that if he has capacity then he is allowed to make even damned foolish decisions.

There's not really a lot you can legally do if he is deemed to have capacity

This happened to a relative of mine—a very well respected retired judge. He wasn’t involved in the sex scams but he started giving money away—thousands—in tips to servers or gifts to house cleaners—it turned out to be vascular dementia (or something).

I don’t really know what can be done legally speaking. Could you try and redirect him into more positive hobbies so he can meet people? There’s a thriving older people community here. Learning conversational French, Nordic walking, social swim for over 55s, drawing, gentle yoga, chair exercise.

If he were busier possibly get into less mischief.

Can you get FIL a new phone with a different number? And a new email. Help him transfer genuine contacts to the new devices and the ditch the old ones. I think that is the only way to cut off the scammers.

Maybe direct him to sites that aren't charging him hundreds of pounds. Perhaps if he's not very tech savvy he doesn't realise he can access loads of porn for very little expense. Perhaps (if this is all new to him) he thinks this is how it works, that you have to pay for videos/photos and then they will consequentially visit him in person.

How is he paying them? Does he have full capacity?

Thanks for the advice. We have suspected for a while that he may have early dementia and we’ve always been almost certain that he is on the spectrum although obviously he’s never been diagnosed.

Time to go to memory clinic.

The first time I met FIL I thought he had dementia but was told he was just odd - undiagnosed ASD.
Few years later the dementia was very very obvious and yes he was falling for scams left right and centre.

Thankfully it was a few years ago now and the scams were easier to head off.

If he has a diagnosis of dementia, you will all feel more comfortable monitoring him and possibly chucking his smartphone in the bin and replacing it with one with a lot of family controls.

If we do think he has dementia, what can we do? We live 2 hours away and he hardly ever likes having visitors. If DH suggests it he will just say no. Obviously this is a huge worry as he’s far away, he’s only recently moved there and doesn’t know anybody (it was a rash decision that we didn’t agree with but obviously we couldn’t stop him). So he is on his own most of the time.

Do you have power of attorney? If you can get that set up, it will make it much easier to help him if the dementia gets worse.