Dad being taken advantage of

[3smallpups]

Not sure how best to deal with this .
pil live a plane flight or a ten hour drive plus a ferry away from us.
mil sadly had dementia and fil did an amazing job of looking after her for many years , with the help of a team of carers , including one called , let’s say Jane .
mil died a few years ago and fil is now struggling with mobility and eye sight. He kept Jane on , paying her privately to clean and take him shopping . But this seemed to morph into basically taking her out for lunch or cooking for her , on paid time . Nothing romantic . This would be fine if she actually was being helpful as well but actually was doing very little .
dh went through finances with him and persuaded him to cut down the payments and employ a proper cleaner .
jane had still been being paid by social services , to take him shopping or out twice a week but turns out he has also been paying her plus paying her petrol money ( included in ss payments ) cash in hand and “ loans “
he now needs more care and ss have said he can have a care visit four times a day , but that’s instead of them paying Jane .
he is happy to do that but wants to still pay Jane privately .he is getting very angry at any suggestion that he shouldn’t .
if Jane was actually looking after him and being helpful that would be fine , it’s his money and he can spend it how he wants but it just feels like she’s basically scamming him at this point .
any suggestions ?
we do have power of attorney, medical and financial but he is fully understanding and we couldn’t take his finances away .
he’s basically paying her £600 plus petrol , a week to take him shopping once and to go out for lunch with him, that he pays for .he sees her as a daughter I think .
dh goes to spend a long weekend with him once a month at least , we really can’t go more as it’s just too far and we have commitments here. He won’t countenance moving nearer .
feel a bit stuck and hate to think of him being taken advantage of.

It's a difficult one. I was in a similar position.

I found it really hard as "Jane" was providing some assistance and much needed company but it felt like she was taking the piss and seriously overstepping (eg. going through financial mail when it was very clear I was managing finances and present at least every four weeks).

I started giving the Jane in my position more tasks to do, and asking for notification about additional costs e.g days out under the guise of money management (my person was displaying early signs of cognitive impairment). Jane had started taking my person out every week for an extended period and it was costing a fortune (one month she billed more than my elderly persons monthly state pension).

Essentially I think it became too hard as she didn't actually want to do any caring taks (shopping/ laundry etc) so she drifted away. Her last hurrah though was leaving my person in the lurch with no laundry and food shopping support over christmas when I was committed to work 400 miles away. This was difficult to sort out but my friend's uni aged kids bailed me out.

Jane then had one final attempt at extricating money by claiming authorship and offering her "loyal readers" a pay per chapter thing on her new book. She wanted the money paid directly to her bank account at some exorbitant rate eg. £15 / chapter.... I mean normally you can buy the entire fucking book for less than that. And she was going to send the text though by PDF. My elderly person has never opened a sodding PDF in their life so it would have been pointless.

My elderly person was savvy enough to know I wouldn't set up the online payments to Jane for them so tootled off to the bank. The branch staff were really good and shut it down, had a big chat with her about online scams and phoned me (I was registered as PoA on the account). But it did cost about 50 quid in taxis to get to the bank to find this out.

He's paying her £600 a week?

Up to the point you said he was paying her £600 a week (is that a typo?) I was kind of on his (and her) side. Who else does he regularly see? Who visits, chats and spends time with him? He is probably crippling lonely. Her time spent with him as company is worth some money and a lunch out. BUT if he’s really paying her that much it’s a bit of another story.

My grandmother had a similar person in her life, started as a cleaner and then morphed into a kind of companion/ surrogate child over many years. It worked for quite a long time until she had to move into a home.

If I was you I’d call someone at social services and ask if staff are allowed to take in private work like this with social services clients. Given that she is being paid by social services too it seems like a real conflict.

Yes , he really is paying that much
his entire private pension , he is living on the state pension and not putting on the heating as he should .
if she really was popping in , having a chat and looking after him , it wouldn’t be so bad but she is literally just doing the six hours a week that ss are paying for , as well . And in that slot they go shopping and he takes her for lunch and gives her extra cash for petrol !

That’s literally financial abuse - >£2,400/month 😮. I’d report her to her employers and to the police.

I think you need to consider something more sustainable for your FIL in the future though.

ss are allocating him someone to go in once a day and make him lunch and check he is ok, which is really helpful. We already found him a cleaner that he pays privately.
dh is going to speak to her and make her aware that we know what’s going on and that we will make ss aware if it continues . He has given her full access to his banking app which needs to stop for a start !
it’s so hard with him being so far away. We begged them to move years ago , have offered for him to move in with us here but he doesn’t want to. We can’t move there, we have jobs and family etc. it costs dh about £400 every time he goes with flights and car hire . Dh speaks to him every day on the phone and plays a computer game with him daily so we do our best but I know he must be lonely .

You have financial POA you need to use it, this is what it's for. Just apologies to him and say it's temporary. Get his shopping delivered, make sure he has everything he needs and give him a small daily or weekly sum of cash until Jane crawls back under her rock. I'd call the bank and block any payments to her or any new recipients and any cash withdrawals over a certain amount just incase. I'd also remove access to his banking app for the time being.
Make social services aware, he likely isn't the only vulnerable person she's doing this to. Personally I'd also call the police as I think what she's doing would be classed as criminal.