DM defrauded - lost £1000’s!

[Cocteautriplet]

DM is in late 80’s and lives alone (but close by) in sheltered accommodation.
She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and dementia last year ( sort of by accident … but that’s another story!) but she is normally very ‘with it’ and together. Her memory is actually better than mine! We were beginning to think that the diagnosis was a mistake … until yesterday when she acted completely out of character.

Yesterday she was a victim of a £14k fraud / burglary carried out by two individuals pretending to be from her bank: one on the phone and one who turned up at her door. They worked together to rob my mother under the guise of transferring her account to a new branch that they claimed ‘would opening nearby next month’.
In total they took £14k from her current account, £250 of cash she had in the house, and her iPad complete with her card reader and her banking pin 😩

If I’m being fair, the stars were probably more than averagely aligned for the fraudsters… Mum hates having to go by bus to her most local bank branch since they closed several months ago and so her interest in having a new local bank was piqued from the get go. Also she had recently been chatting with a neighbour about a mobile branch of Barclays that had been around locally and so when the fraudsters suggested coming round to ‘help her’. She didn’t think it too odd.

I am stunned however that she didn’t suspect anything was up until the fraud was well and truly underway - she watches all those daytime tv programmes with Gloria Hunniford about scams and we always tell her not to give out her banking details to anyone even if talking to the actual bank but yesterday she just stunned us. For one she gave out her card number on the phone including pin, secondly when asked about recent transactions on her card she just handed over her stash of cash for the thief to count as she’d got it out of the wall the day before and thirdly she let the guy walk off with her iPad under the guise of checking something in his van! It’s pretty shocking tbh. Shamefully I was so annoyed with her when she told me and I had to try very hard to keep calm and not get mad at her .. with hindsight they worked hard to confuse her with a intense two pronged attack and I feel terrible for her now… I was just so shocked that a normally sensible person would do all those things! I’m grateful of course that she was not harmed in any way and shaken about how things could have gone another way so maybe it was good she complied?

Thankfully the bank will make good the money taken and her contents insurance should cover the iPad and cash and it looks like the police have found footage of the thieve on cctv. We disabled the iPad as soon as we knew it was gone. Going forward I really need to set some parameters in place so this can’t happen again and she agrees this is for the best. I already have power of attorney but need to put this into practice with the bank. I have suggested to her, and she agrees, that I do all her Internet banking from now on and she will not be privy to the log on information or hold the reader. Instead of her having her debit card we are going to transfer a set amount a month onto a pre paid card and I will get out small amounts of cash for her when she needs it ( she pays her cleaner by cash and likes to use cash when out and about). Does this seem reasonable? I don’t want to clip her wings too much as she is still very independent and enjoys eating out, buying clothes and knick knacks etc but I feel she does need protecting from herself and others.

yes, that sounds a v good plan.
but, more widely, i think you really do need to accept that she has dementia, and that it is a progressive condition.
don't expect too much of her.
anyone can get scammed.

all the best.

I hope those people are caught soon. How awful for your mum and for you. Yes that sounds like a good plan

That sounds a good plan OP … so sorry this happened to your Mum

They really are scum. What if that happened to the scammers parents. I hope they rot in hell

Thank you - I guess what threw me was that she acted completely out of character… can dementia get worse very quickly like that? I was expecting a more measured progression iykwim?
I’m now wondering if it was more likely that the fraudsters sort of hypnotised her into doing what they wanted? When she called me to tell me what had just happened she was saying ‘I’m sure this is ok but I just had this call / visit from the bank and I gave them my bank details’.

Kindly OP I think your understanding of dementia seems very superficial. Can you arrange to speak to a specialist so that you can understand how best to sort your mum
going forward?

Hypnotised her? No. Really. She is old and has dementia. What else do you expect?

You don’t understand the condition and you’re expected too much of her.

Going forward, it would be helpful to look into setting up some sort of authorisation arrangement on her accounts where, e.g. two signatures (hers and yours) are required for withdrawals and/or transfers. Things like that.

With respect I really thought she was doing really well - she even went on a holiday by herself a couple of months ago, she goes to regular art classes and is active socially… she doesn’t forget words or names etc… if you met her you really wouldn’t know she had dementia… I guess I was just hoping she would stay so capable for a little bit longer. I know people mask but I’m really close to her and would know if she had been doing this in the last few months. The only small sign is maybe that she has been spending a bit more than normal.

Any condition can rapidly progress.

OP is going to take over her DMs finances ….it’s in the OP

I would suggest that you get Ring cameras too for her doors as well that you can be party to.

Re ring - yes the police suggested that. There are cameras on the main entrance ( sheltered accommodation) but they don’t blooming work atm.

I'm sorry this happened, these people are the lowest of the low taking advantage of older people who, even without dementia, are vulnerable because they may not understand how banking works.

My step grandma has dementia, I think he daughter arranged for her phone only to accept calls from certain numbers so random people can't phone her.

Dementia is so variable. Even professionals get it wrong, imo.

I have a relative who was just signed off by the psychiatrist as having "mild cognitive impairment," probably because he showers, gets his groceries and keeps appointments.

But sometimes when I call in the evening, he will say things like, "It's time to get up!" or "I can't talk to you now, because ShrubRose is going to call me and I have to see what happened to her."

It's really difficult.

My gran is fully with it, no dementia, very independent, socially active, travels. She got scammed out of nearly 10k , they had her on the mobile and landline at the same time convinced her there was something wrong with her internet, then took over her laptop remotely, she'd seen a btinternet van outside the day before, her internet was glitchy on that day and it all seemed to fit in. Once they had remote access to her laptop, they asked her to confirm security info under the guise of their checks, DOB, mother's maiden name etc and were able to bypass her online banking security, because they had some of her bank details and access to her email and she gave them the code that was sent to her phone.

They had her on the office for nearly two hours, and it was weeks after my grandpa died at the tail end of covid. They just completely bamboozled her. HSBC were unable to get the money back, but they replaced it as they had tried to call my gran on both mobile and landline because the activity looked unusual but if course the scammers had both lines tied up.
They are very skilled at what they do and apply pressure in a way it's hard to refuse without feeling rude. Don't be too hard on her they target people who are vulnerable and know exactly what they are doing.

A similar scam was tried with my dad who's in his seventies, but he's of a different disposition and told them to f off, he then did the same to his actual bank when they called him to say they'd seen some attempts at accessing his account, telling them where to go and hanging up so they had to write to him and he went into branch .... 🤦‍♂️ Luckily the member of staff in the branch thought it was funny

When she had her brain scan a year ago everyone (medical staff included) were expecting a negative result as are performed really well in the tests and she is so with it. The only reason we had the scan done was because she had a bad episode of delirium linked to a bladder infection. The scan showed lots of plaque build up in two large areas of brain. I can only suspect the healthy parts of her brain are compensating the affected areas … but we really did wonder if there had been a mistake.

Not sure I'd believe that. I had the same excuse from Waitrose when thieves stole the catalytic converter off my car in their carpark.

Try and get the police to ask and also write a strong letter of complaint. They are supposed to be keeping people safe. Broken cameras don't do that.

you don't have to have dementia to fall victim to this type of scam. The perpetrators are extremely well trained in psychological manipulation. This is a great charity for advice https://wearehourglass.org/

Myother & Time 4 … I agree 100%. They do bamboozle.. when we turned up to help her it was like she had been programmed by the thieves to think they were legit even when it was clear that things had gone. That’s what I mean by hypnotised. It was horrible. Thanks for all the kind words everyone!

My mum has dementia and Alzheimer's. I was worried about this kind of thing as she flings money about with abandon.

She had tens of thousands in her current accounts so I put a load in a high interest ISA and a load in Premium Bonds.

I have safeguarding on her phone so only people she knows can call.

I second the Ring doorbell so you can monitor every single visitor that comes to her door.

DH nan (who doesn’t have dementia and is generally as sharp as a tack) handed over £1400 earlier this year to a man who spent 30 minutes on her roof which he told her needed fixing, he could do it there and then and would cost £3k. She told him she only had £1.4k in cash at home and he said that’d do, got his ladders out and that was that 🙄. From her telling of it it was real high pressure “your roof is literally about to fall in and must be fixed today” stuff.

Had she had a Ring doorbell DH would have been notified and got to her house in 10 mins and told the guy to fuck off.

Im so sorry to other posters whose relatives have been scammed. We notice they seem to target mum’s building like wasps to honey as it’s sheltered accommodation. I agree totally that they should have cameras on the door. They have a manager but is absolutely useless and hardly there.

I’m definitely looking up the phone service that lets you filter calls - thank you!

People with absolutely no cognitive impairments get caught out by scams all the time. These people are very very skilled in what they do, they are slick and fast and confuse and bamboozle - they have an answer to every question. You only have to watch the programmes where head teachers or police officials get scammed to realise this.

After MIL was scammed (which included someone coming to take her to the bank and coaching her what to say) she was terrified of the phone afterwards. She would not answer a call from an unknown number which meant that she would never take a call from the NHS. It made things very difficult in her last few years at home.

She got the money back but not her confidence.