I have a father that has several times sent large sums of money to scammers that have claimed to have a romantic interest in him. Recently the same user name convinced him to sell his RV and then to send her all the money. The RV was his home. He is now currently staying at one of my Aunts. I did not find out about the sale of the RV up until another Aunt told me. I did confront my Dad because he had been lying to me or should I say keeping it from me because he did not want me to lecture him, I have in the past warned him many times that he should not be sending money to anyone but needs to take care of himself and himself only. My Aunts and I have agreed he needs help because he is not making sound decisions. Scammers are able to convince him to send money while telling the most dramatic stories that myself or any other person would not believe in a heart beat. My dad was a smart business man with his own company up until just 2 years ago when he decided to divorce my step mom and sell all of his machinery and trucks. Since, the divorce he has sent over 100k to scammers or close to the sum of by calculations between my step mom, aunts, brother and myself.
It breaks my heart the this actually exist in our world and elderly are taking advantage in this way. Any advice, thoughts and knowledge of resources would be so greatly appreciated.
got involved with scammers I would admonish him, print off govt. articles on scams, etc. Nothing stopped him until he was evicted from his apartment for non payment of rent. He still would not quit sending them money, even while in a Board & Care Facility from which he was evicted, and then still when he was in AL from which he also got evicted. Homeless again I finally took him in. His phone had been turned off for non payment. Scammers could no longer get to him because he could no longer be located or called.
Now after 9 months free of scammers he is pushing to get a phone again
and I am having difficulty putting him off, but I know as soon as he has a phone he will fall victim again. Isolation from phone, computer and mail is the only thing that works.
I've had to clean up identity theft TWICE for my mom. The police can't do anything for these cases. I've talked to them. You can try to report it, but it's unlikely to go anywhere. They can't track or trace these people, many are overseas, and they utilize ever changing phone numbers. There must be a special place in "NOT Heaven" for people who take advantage of vulnerable elderly like this. It doesn't hurt to file a report, but I honestly wouldn't expect anything to come from it.
You don't know what info your dad shared. Put a freeze on his credit, and report possible identity theft on the Federal Trade Commission website. Report it to the credit bureaus and get a copy of his credit report to check for anything unusual. If he has credit cards, report it to them and check for unusual charges. You will need him with you when making these phone calls so he can tell them it's OK to talk to you (unless you have POA and it's already in effect). Change his phone number and limit who he can call as someone mentioned earlier. Change any passwords he had on computer accounts, retirement accounts, banking, etc. Have his bank verify if anyone has access to his account through online banking (my mom's bank found that someone was accessing it from India!) - and check this on any credit cards he may have. Consider getting identity monitoring for him such as Lifelock (paid out of his money). It's a giant pain in the behind and can be very time consuming. It took me a month to take care of this for my mom (one positive for me, I had been laid off during covid and had scads of time). My mom protested the entire time that she could do it... there was no way. She couldn't even remember from visit to visit why I was doing all this work. My dad tried to protect her his entire life and failed in protecting her from computer scammers because he wouldn't listen to me. He had already passed away, but I was furious at him and at the scammers and went into complete mama bear mode.
Protect him, and don't put up with any nonsense from him. There isn't anyone else to do it.
P.S. Don't forget that if you change his phone, you need to update the info with the Social Security Administration, any retirement companies that he receives benefits from, banks, credit cards, etc.
You need to take away his ability to send / receive these types of emails, texts - all communications. If you do not have legal authorization to manage these things, you could:
1) get him evaluated by MD for dementia; get in writing so you can manage his care, legally. Get this ASAP. You need to limit spending through cr cards, bank cards, etc. Perhaps $30 a week ?
1a) take away his computer / get phone with limited access.
2) If he continues to be 'in charge' of how he spends money, manages property, he will suffer the consequences. You can only do what you can do.
It is heartbreaking.
I, too, fell for a scam. And, I am - have all (or most) of my marbles.
I was on a dating site (Match dot com) and someone asked me to contact 'her' friend outside of the site - email directly. That was my cue that this was a scam although I never thought of it. LUCKILY, I am smart enough to NOT send money, etc. At some point, I thought the response / respondee was a child with how s/he was asking questions/communicating. Certainly not very bright.
I contacted Match and they managed it through their legal / fraudulent dept.
I never got on a site again. Once 'they' see OLDER - be it 50-60-70 +-, these scammers are like flies attracted to dog s---t. They can't get to it quick enough.
All you can do from here on out is the best you can.
The worst, hopefully - is over.
The 'best' aspect is that you know now and may need to make new living / home arrangements for your dad.
Years ago, I contacted the Attorney General. I don't know if this avenue might help you out. It is worth checking into. Gena.
It is very sad.
If your father ever recognizes the deception, he will probably be deeply embarrassed and remorseful, but some men never accept the reality of the situation.
Romance fraud is a highly under-reported crime, as many victims tend to be ashamed of being duped.
Signs of a romance scam...
If your parent is single, you don’t need to scare Mom or Dad away from dating entirely. However, let your parent know that there are people who might prey on him or her. Scammers tend to create fake profiles on dating websites and on social media sites, but they can be hard to spot. However, the tactics they use are pretty common. So tell your parent about these telltale signs of romance scammers:
They claim to be living or traveling outside the United States. This allows them to avoid meeting with victims in person.
They seem too good to be true and say all of the right things.
They quickly escalate the relationship by using lots of flattery, professing love and asking to move conversations off the dating service so they can communicate directly by text or email.
They make plans to in person meet but always come up with excuses not to meet.
They claim to have a medical emergency or unexpected expense and ask for money.
They also might ask for money to pay for a trip together or to come visit. They typically ask for money to be wired or to buy a gift card or cash reload card and provide them with the card number.
Help your parents contact their bank if they paid a scammer with their debit card or transferred money to ask that the transaction be reversed.
If they wired money, they should notify the wire transfer company that it was a fraudulent transaction and ask for their money back.
If they paid with a gift card or reloadable card, they should contact the card company to see if they can get a refund, according to the FTC.
If your parents provided scammers with personal information such as their Social Security numbers, they’ll need to take steps to protect their identity. IdentityTheft.gov has details on how to recover from identity theft.
Your parents also should report the scam at FTC.gov/complaint.
There’s no guarantee they’ll get their money back. But by reporting the crime, they might help authorities catch the scammers.
More to ask
How do you find someone who is scamming you?
How To Track Down Someone Who Scammed You (and What To Do Next)
Collect evidence of the fraud.
Don't bother with “people finder” or phone number lookup services.
Fill out an official FTC report.
File a report with your local law enforcement.
Report online scammers to the platform on which they contacted you.
At first I talked with him would go up and straighten things out tell him not to do this. I would leave and he would go buy a gift card and give the numbers to the MAN ON THE PHONE. I had to take over or he would have been in debt and no place to live. I set up my name on my Dads account. I moved money from his checking account into another account and he did not like this and the man on the phone would tell him to sue me for doing this.
My Dad went from a retired business man to giving his hard earned money away. Most of this happened during COVID.
My Dad got very confused - I blame the money issues on his reasons to not be taking care of himself and his falling. My Dad is now in a nursing home with help from the state.
I live in Florida and have gone to many senior centers and churches and have talked to them about what happened to my Dad.
It is sad that this happens and I know it has happened to many.
it is very important to report the crime to local law enforcement and visit ic3.gov and report it there.
good luck
A fool and their money are soon parted. The answer to your question is no. There are no "resources" (and when you say resources I'm assuming you mean money) available that recover sums of money that some senior willingly and foolishly squandered on nonsense.
Since no one actually robbed or stole from your father no one is going to be prosecuted. He willingly gave his money away. Now he will have to live with the consequences of it the same way my father had to.
He squandered everything he had on a younger woman who was a low-class hustler. Then when the time came and he needed LTC, he couldn't go to a nice place because he couldn't afford it.
Pretty much all you can do now is try to petition the court for conservatorship/guardianship of your father and pray that you get it. Other than that there really isn't much you can do in situations like this.
This is what I did:
I set up my name on my daddies' accounts. I moved money from his checking account to his savings account and he did not know this.
I would not let him see the savings account total he only ever saw the checking account.
He had a living trust and I asked him to resign from it so that I could take care of him - he agreed. This made me in charge of everything.
Start keeping a separate account of all his dealings so if you are asked about it you can prove it.
Start paying his bills and have him go paperless. Let him know you are now taking care of the bills and he doesn't need to worry about them.
Give him a limited prepaid credit card so he can buy what he needs and it will be limited to only that amount. yes its like an allowance.
Get him a grandpad - no scammers can call its only allowed to let assigned people call. Limited internet if you want. Has games, news, music, videos, pictures. Does not work on wifi it works on data so he can use it anywhere.
blessings to you
The problem you have here is one of competency. If your father were diagnosed with dementia so severe that he was no longer competent to make his own decisions you could file to be his guardian and take over his finances. As he is NOT, I assume, thusly incompetent his poor decisions-making falls under that same category as poor decisions make at any age at all. There is no way you can protect him. His SS will come into his account and he will likely send it right away. If the trailer is gone, then likely all else is as well. If Aunt is caring for him I advise her to make a shared living arrangement with him with an attorney. If she doesn't need the money she can at least put THAT amount away for him.
The dreadful thing here is that you need to make as complete a paper trail as you can here, and consider making a police report, as this amount given to others who are scamming will be considered as "gifting" by the Federal Government, and your Dad won't be eligible to receive care when he needs Medicaid.
You might consider a consult with an Elder Law Attorney to see if you have any options. I am so very sorry this is happening. Do also google AARP and look up scamming; many articles there to discuss with your Dad and some advice and numbers for reaching out for you.