aj6044 Asked September 2022
Mom has an online "boyfriend" who wants her bank account info and SHE GAVE IT. What do I do now?
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Close everything down, get new accounts and put bank alerts on all of her financial accounts.
Dating scams are a billion dollar industry. They prey on people's loneliness. What took your mother an entire lifetime to save could be wiped out in 10 seconds.
This is an international phenomenon. You have to protect the elderly and meet with a lawyer and probably your State's Attorney General's office and/or FBI.
There is a documentary called "Tinder Swindler" these things happen to professional women too, etc. The Facebook and Twitter accounts, with people showcasing their lavish lifestyle has not helped either--expensive pocketbooks, fancy vacations.
I also would do a credit check to make sure that your mother's name is not being used to get new credit cards in another person's name. I would meet with an Elder Attorney as I am sure they are well versed in the area and unfortunately these things do happen more than we realize.
I'm sorry you have to go through this but not doing anything about this is going to make your mother someone else's ATM machine.
I almost got scammed a few weeks ago when I called a fake number off the internet set up for Amazon. People should be careful calling random contact numbers posted on the internet posing as major companies. I called the number thinking it was the original contact number and was told that a hold was placed on my Amazon account and that three locations had been found for it. The woman who had an accent did not want me to leave the conversation. I hung up the phone and managed to find the real contact information on the Amazon site through my account. Even though I didn't lose any money, I still lost about two hours of my time trying to sort out this mess that included speaking with someone at the Amazaon fraud department. After the investigation, there was no criminal activity found on my account.
I joined a dating app back in 2019 and the same thing almost happened to me. I had been communicating with someone in Africa who was posing as a US soldier stationed in some remote area that I didn't think had US forces. I was getting texts morning, noon and night. This is called lovebombing. I got suspicious, and finally figured out that I was communication with at least three different individuals. Some of the convos appeared like they were cutting and pasting texts from some other source because it appeared very formal. Then later on a text would follow with broken English and poor spelling. All I know is something appeared off.
They usually target people in their late fifties, sixties and up, but if they find someone younger, even better. I quit the app and a year later, this person appeared in people you may know feed on my Facebook page. It didn't take long for this person to contact again. I still couldn't believe this was a scammer until he started asking for money to support an orphanage in some eastern European country. When I said no, he cut off all contact. His facebook information disappeared completely and he was nowhere to be found. These criminals steal pictures of attractive people from their social media accounts and use them in their criminal set-ups. The innocent people in these photos do not know their pictures are being used in these scams. Also, why would a thirty something year old want with someone my age? There are a wide range of beautiful and young women to pick from.
Please contact your mother's bank and let them know that she is being targeted by a scammer through a dating app and contact the police and file a report with the FBI. Hopefully, she will lose nothing but time if you act fast. Get the police report first, and take it to the bank. Take her ID and yours and any other documented evidence you will need.
There is a sweepstakes scam on the rise now. I just read about this one the other day.
Does your Mom understand she was scammed? Or is she in denial? "Someone" is going to have to secure all her sensitive information, maybe purchase ID theft protection, put most her cash into a savings account that she can't easily access, get rid of any debit or credit cards, make sure she can't change her passwords easily, etc. "Someone" should go to her home to make sure her checkbook isn't in disarray, her blank checks are removed, her bills are paid online via BillPay, her passport, birth certificates, driver's license info is all secured from prying eyes or mis-shared by her. You may need to consider putting parental controls on her access to the internet unless you want this to reoccur.
My MIL had more than $900 in overdrafts when we finally looked into her account. Her had nothing written accurately in the register, hadn't paid bills, was having short-term memory loss so reordered dozens of boxes of new checks, all stashed in weird places. In our personal experience, her degree of impairment was not immediately obvious without asking her specific questions (like the specific date, who is the President, Vice President, etc.). There is no "announcement" when someone slides over the line into official dementia. This is why you need to look deeper to see evidence of concern.
Years ago my Dad was very careful not to give out any information. In fact, any time he was throwing out an envelope that had his name/address, he would black it out. It was almost like he and my Mom were under the witness protection agency, they were so careful.
Within a few month that started to change. Any time the phone rang, the caregiver would be standing close by to listen. One day she grab the phone from my Dad as he was starting to give out his society security number. She quizzed Dad, then quizzed the caller... it was a scam so she read the caller the riot act. She let me know what had happened.
you may not have the authorization to stop it, but at least you put their fraud department on alert
DO THIS IMMEDIATELY!!!!