My grandpa, 84 yo, recently lost his wife of 61 years to an aggressive brain tumor in March 2015. We had some time, 3 months, before her passing to help assist grandpa with getting up to speed with household management as grandma handled everything household related.
Within a month after her passing, grandpa met a woman at the senior center and after one visit, she quickly became a regular household visitor. Grandpa would take her to expensive restaurants several times a week which was very uncharacteristic of his financial expenditures. It was within a week of their meeting that he was confronted and warned by someone at the senior center of her money scheming intentions. But grandpa, deathly afraid of being all alone, refused to take heed. Needless to say, the family is not happy at all.
Fast forward 5 months, she is at his residence every day. She has requested he buy her glasses, take her on vacations, buy her a new car, take her gaming (and give her money to gamble because "she is luckier at the casino when she gambles with other's money") and she recently asked him to add her to his checking accounts. We've done a little research on her background and found she has a gambling addiction, previous troubles with unpaid taxes, SEC8 housing, and a bad reputation for being a swindler. She has convinced grandpa that his family is awful and only wants his money. He has met with a lawyer and revoked his children's financial access. From what we can tell, he's out a minimum of $40K in 5 months without any explanation of where the money has gone.
Lawfully, there is nothing the family can do about this as he is willing giving money to her. While we, the extended family, can clearly see her true intentions, Grandpa desperately doesn't want to be alone so gives in to all of her requests. He has stopped taking his medications and refuses to see a doctor. Soon, we imagine, he'll stop taking our phone calls as well as she has convinced him that his family is no good.
While he is quickly loosing his entire life savings, we feel like we are losing the patriarch of our family.
Is there anything we can do?
However, you could contact APS and ask them to investigate. It might scare the woman enough to back off; but it might also alienate you from your grandfather.
And there might be a legitimate medical issue since he's no longer taking meds and won't see a doctor. That might be part of her plan, to accelerate the deterioration in his health.
What I would do though is take the research you've done (which I also would have done myself), see perhaps a local law enforcement officer to see if he/she can pull a more detailed credit report, and then if necessary see an elder law or even a criminal attorney to determine if there are any other options to pursue.
I would also run her name as well as any aliases if you're aware of some through the local district and county court clerk lists of cases to see if anyone has filed a civil suit or if she's been charged in a criminal action.
If she's in Sec. 8 housing, I'm assuming the landlord would be paying the taxes as she would be a renter. You could research to find out who that is and ask if she's current with her rent. I don't think it would hurt to let her know you're wise to her manipulations.
I don't think you could get any information on whether her income taxes are current.
This woman moves fast - $40K in 5 months is a pretty swift pace. You might want to ask law enforcement officers if there's a special task force or squad that deals with predators of seniors. Maybe the state police or attorney general could help along that line as well, or even the FBI (I'm remembering the movie "Black Widow").
Are you aware of any men she's scammed who have died fairly quickly after she's become involved? On the other hand, if she picks older men, there are always health issues that could be considered a dominant factor anyway.
Retirement Living TV (RLTV) has aired programs on senior scamming. You might check their website and search programs to see if any information can be gained from their presentations.
The other option would be more drastic and that's to file for guardianship. If he doesn't have dementia, he certainly is displaying a lack of prudent financial management. If you do get guardianship, you can ask the local court to issue a PPO against her.
Or, you could hire a private investigator, who could discreetly make his presence known so that she's aware she's under scrutiny. It might scare her off.
Good luck; please let us know what you learn. This kind of situation is always troubling and frightening.
If he's still considered competent, he can do what he wants with his funds, but he needs to sign a legal - looking paper for you, the family, that he understands that gifting money now will result in in eligibility for Medicaid later, and that you, the family, will not be providing housing or care for him when he needs it.
I would play hardball with Both of them.
It also occurred to me that the senior center should be confronted because that's where she "works" on people like your grandfather. I would not hesitate to confront the director of the senior center, tell the director what's been happening between your grandpa and this woman, and see what the director knows about her like whether or not she's new in town or has a history with men there. I would also not hesitate to ask the director to help you work with local authorities. Senior centers are supposed to be where seniors can socialize safely. The last thing a senior center director wants is bad publicity.
Without prying or making you feel uncomfortable, I'm wondering if the FBI was informed, or any national task force on fraud? I suspect these people may move from town to town or even state to state, and unless there's a pattern detected by multiple law enforcement departments or at state and national level, they could get away with their activities for some time. I'm guessing they change their names as often as they change their locations.
Frustrated and your posts have been very sad and unsettling, but also insightful and helpful, and have helped me make a decision that I've been considering, which is not to print obituaries in newspapers or online, and specifically make it a part of any funeral contract I sign that there will be no public notification. I might even require that posting of the funeral in the funeral's website be withheld.
The people who need to know are ones I'll be contacting anyway, there can be a memorial sheet of relevant facts for attendees, and no one who isn't contacted need be aware of empty houses of relatives on the funeral day, empty house of the deceased, or who any of the relatives are.
See All Answers