My sister sent me to this website. I am currently going through something with my 63 year old mom. She thinks she is in a relationship with Johnny Depp and Luke Grimes. I have found she's sent Apple gifts cards of 500 dollars each.
She hides her phone now, because I would go through it and find all her messages to these scammers on Telegram and Signal. I have tried so many things, reaching out to the scammers when I did have her phone and then just had her buy a new phone, new number, but now she hides her phone. The police did not do anything, just told me they will put in a referral for mental evaluation. My mom declined.
I have shown her videos articles of this happening I have even messaged a Johnny Depp page and the scammer reached out as if he was Johnny Depp. This person finally admitted he was from Nigeria and needed money. I showed her this, and she does not believe it. She will lie and say she has stopped, but she hasn't.
She is just so odd now. She's not the same mom/grandma we knew. She has withdrawn from the family. We argue about the situation and she blames me, saying I'm toxic and telling my sister and daughter lies.
Every healthcare person I called to get help and explained the situation to all said it's likely early dementia. She has told me at times she feels foggy and not herself sometimes. I scheduled a PCP appointment and she canceled it.
I am at a loss. I recently mentioned to her that she is not talking to Luke Grimes and she said, "I know it's not him. I'm just having fun with whoever it is." I told her, "But you sent this person money," and she gets very upset and starts blaming me for things.
She is not well. I'm seriously at a loss on what to do. She is wanting to sell her home and the only vehicle she has for this.
My mom was scammed in 2015. I filed for guardianship and conservator within 1 month and closed off all financial access.
I would consider a report to the DA office. You may need temporary conservatorship or guardianship; call APS and say your mom is a victim of a celebrity scam and unable to understand it is a scam, and that you are worried she will lose all her money. They will help you get charge of this, or get her under a court appointed fiduciary for her own protection.
I am so sorry this is happening to her, and to you.
You may want to have the conversation with her about what happens to elders who don't assign a PoA themselves: they eventually become a ward of a court-assigned 3rd party legal guardian who will absolutely take away her phone completely and stop access to her bank account. So, she can voluntarily assign a trusted family member or do a crap-shoot with social services. Not to mention you won't take her in when she is broke.
This issue may require "someone" in the family to acquire guardianship or conservatorship so she doesn't give away all her funds to scammers.
She definitely needs an evaluation by her medical doctor and possibly a neurologist. You make the appointment. Explain to the doctor's office that you are concerned that she is not mentally competent. Ask them to NOT allow her to cancel the appointment. You make sure she gets to that appointment and gets her evaluation. WHEN she is declared mentally incompetent, THEN you and your sibling(s) need to discuss next steps in caring for your mom.
Can you block numbers that are "unknown"?
And can you place a "freeze" on any credit cards she might be using?
One aspect of what she is doing that hasn’t been brought up & that IMHO is very important is that she is doing this by choice. That mom has made decisions and doing actions on her own free will. She has not been robbed, has not been truly hacked, has not acted under duress (kidnapped, gun to your head); she chose to do these things. For law enforcement and financial institutions, it is hard for them to do anything about this because she has a right to spend her $ wrongly. LSS to have any control, there needs to be guardianship done as that legally establishes that she is unable to do decision making regarding finances and well being AND guardian gets control. Whether it’s a family member or court assigned. It is something for you & Sis to think about. A guardianship atty will have costs, that you will pay upfront for their representation BUT once you or Sis are named Guardian, then you can be reimbursed for your costs. A good guardianship atty can guide you on how to get the documentation needed for the court. It may seem expensive but will be less that the $ you’ll end up spending to bail mom out of her house going up for tax sale or to fix a roof from hail damage as she had let her homeowners policy $ go to a scammer instead or pay for her to be in a facility. If mom is 63, you’re what 35-43? Younger? Really you & Sis discuss what to do as y’all do not want this lurking about - both emotionally & financially- for another decade plus.
Time is not on your side because if mom continues on her path, she will sell that house of hers and that $ too will be gone as well. Mom is in a “romance” scam & likely in a “pig butchering” scam as well.
There are things you can do now: 1. file a police report, 2. do an IC.3 filing (as GreyGrannie aptly posted on), 3. do an Identity Theft notice & freeze & pull a credit report with the big 3 credit reporting agencies (eg Experian). Doing 1 & 2 is mucho importante AND you want to keep both a paper copy and cloud storage on these.
Why so important? Well mom is doing this by choice, she is “gifting” to others. Gifting! When she gets to the point that she needs to be in a facility and has no $, what elders in that situation do is file for Long Term Care Medicaid as this program pays for room&board custodial costs. Well LTC Medicaid has a 5 yr lookback; so any $ or assets transferred or gifted places a penalty on their eligibility. That police report & ic.3 can be used to establish the $ loss was due to a crime, so not gifting = no gifting transfer penalty placed. This is also important as what’s especially sticky on this is…… as they are in a facility so are racking up a bill every day; so when gifting surfaces and penalty placed as they have no $, the facility will try to go after you & Sis to pay plus they will find a way to get her removed. 4 mos Assisted Living = 20K-30K, 4 mos Nursing Home = 28K-60K. Horrors!
Please pls realize that mom is on a list that’s circulating. Nigeria & Ghana for romance; India and Russian expats for crypto + romance. If she has given them personal information, they may have info on you & Sis as well. Yeah Horrors 2.0!
if you want to read more on “scams”, go to the r/scam group on Reddit. It’s astounding & heartbreaking. Lots of folks posting who have been in your situation that are helpful. Especially on the “recovery” scammers that seek out concerned family like you and Sissy.
As someone else suggested, set up her Dr appt, ask them to contact your phone number with any reminders. and just take her.
Falling for scams and minor fender benders were some of the first signs that my MIL was declining.
My father fell for a scam by someone impersonating a Facebook friend. It was someone at the post office that grew suspicious of the mail he was sending out, looked up the address, and showed him that he was sending magazines (with money hidden in the pages) to an abandoned trailer in a trailer park, not a government agency. My father then came clean with me (he lost several thousand dollars) and allowed me to monitor his email, Facebook, access to his bank accounts, phone records, US mail, etc. Twice a day I went into everything to remove all the scams. There were a lot and I could see how overwhelming it could become for an older person.
I hope something brings your mom around and you are able to begin to monitor everything for her.
(Although at 63--that's terrifying that your mom is happily going down the drain with scammers!)
I had a friend who got caught in a 'Nigerian Scam"--she was 47 at the time. Met him through FB and began an intense 'relationship' with him. She actually flew to Cyprus several times to 'try' to get him out of there and back to Nigeria.
It was horrifying to watch her lose all sense of self as she spent thousands and thousands of $$ 'helping' her boyfriend.
She was so taken in by him--and she wanted to be in love so badly she simply couldn't see that he was involving her in a scam of epic proportions.
Finally, she 'married' him (I don't care what you post on FB, doesn't mean the marriage was legit or anything but a further hoax on her.) In all of the pictures of him, he carefully has turned his head so he doesn't really show up in the pics.
He still lives in Cyprus, and she lives here and sends him money every month. She's lost her home, and lives with her mom now.
This has been going on for close to 10 years...she's not stupid, but so incredibly gullible. And she's now just in her 50's. has lost everything, yet maintains she will be bringing him 'home' as soon as they can iron out his visa....
She was warned, by anybody and everybody who knew her that this was a scam. She simply ignored all of us and cut us off as friends if we said anything against him.
The kicker in this is that he is only 28. She's now about 56. She asked me once how 'stupid' would everyone feel when she walked into church with this guy on her arm. I told her "People are going to think you adopted him."
She cannot see that there is actually NO ONE PERSON behind this--the 'man' she thinks she's married to doesn't exist.
I'd be sick with worry of this were my mother doing this--or anyone I cared about. Your mom sounds like she needs to be watched 24/7. You may have to have her declared incompetent and take over her finances. How sad-at such a young age to be caught in something so insidious and bad.
You're right to worry--I watched my friend completely bottom out...all the while maintaining she was doing the right thing. Scammers get so good at what they do---and shame on them! (Like they care, they don't).
I hope you can protect your mom.
Hope she at least got a great set of luggage out of the “romance”.