My Mom Was a Victim Of A Romance Scam

[Music] brought to you by the every dooll app start budgeting for free today my question today is about how to help my mother recover from a romance scam um she recently found out that there's about $1.2 million missing from hers and my grandmother's um estate um and it's gone uh and I know I'm not responsible for my mother's spending but there's just very few resources out there to help someone as they recover from uh this kind of scam wow so he has disappeared yeah I don't even think she met him in person um so this this got flagged from her bank uh after she transferred $300,000 and they flagged that but that was only the biggest transfer there were a lot of other smaller transactions totaling that I'm aware of about 1.2 million but how old is your mom she is 71 what a horrible thing I'm so sorry simultaneously makes me angry and sad um wow uh okay so I guess there's a couple of areas um is your mom uh just lonely or is she uh diminished mentally that's a great question I definitely the first one um we thought that she might be diminishing mentally I I still hold that opinion there are other family members that um think she's just the way she's always been um is there anything left there's she told me there's about $5,000 of my grandmother's money left um my grandmother does have income and that's going to cover her nursing home expenses she's actually in hospice now and I do feel like my grandmother is going to be okay um we've been working with the nursing home to make sure that they're going to continue her care and you know it's not going to be too much who's in hospice your grandmother or your mother my grandmother my grandmother my my my mother is a power of attorney for my grandmother which is how this came out because I'm the um I'm like the second in line for power attorney I forget that term right now but so how is your mom successor how is your mom uh reacting to all of this is she uh prideful towards you all uh I I can do what I want to do or is she uh scared and humbled take over this I'm not capable hey it's George that's right I've been here the whole time just creeping kind of like the creepy spammers and scammers out there using and selling your personal data not cool guys not cool and that's why you need to check out delete me delete me will find and remove your info from all these data broker sites to reduce the risk of spam and scam in your life delete me has already removed my info from over 250 websites that don't have any business having it and as a Ramsey fan you'll get 20% off all of their plans which comes out to less than n bucks a month so after this clip go sign up and take control of your privacy at join delet me.com Ramsey or click the link in the description to get the deal all right back to the call no she's really in denial at the moment um I've tried to send her budgets I've tried you know stuff from from y'all's website and okay unless she unless she is mentally diminished can't make her do anything correct so all you can do is help her with her guilt once she discovers she's been scammed and that she's probably going to need to sit down and see a good therapist a good counselor yeah it's almost like an addict Behavior like I'm kind of waiting for her to hit bottom and then I'm going to try to scoot her some resources which is I'm not scooting her any resources she's not responsible enough to handle them um you've just got to you've got to decide how she can manage you can help her manage the resources she get gets her hands on um and manage those and if you give her some food money instead just give her some food because we got to get a long way away from this competency issue I can't tell why she's incompetent whether it's just sheer loneliness and she's not a very smart person or whether she's mentally diminished I can't tell and you can't either is what it amounts to so um you know you've just got to treat her like that and go oh man it's so sad such evil people out there um and um have you turned this over to the FBI yet well you can't if she's in denial she's got she's got got a file it right I think they're aware um because of the conversation I understand with the bank um I do think she's on I've researched all this I think she's on the there's like a list um so I think it has been reported to the FBI okay all right and if there's anything you can do to try sometimes once in a Blue Moon they actually recoup some of this stuff but wow I'm so sorry what a horrible thing so yeah you you're there for her emotionally uh as she deals with the guilt of this level of screw up and you're there for her basic necessities but we're not scooting her resources uh she doesn't need any scooting she she needs you know she needs care uh you're going to have to treat her like she does not have competency because she obviously doesn't yeah the the thing that I would add Alison is is you mentioned you're going to have to let her hit rock bottom and unfortunately you're going to have to do this this is where role reversal takes place you become the parent she's the child and it's very very difficult but short of Dave the the children being able to pay for a private investigator the only way I hate to be so negative but I've read into some of these things because we've taken this call several times over the last six months as I recall and I I did some research very very hard to recover this these people this may not even be a real dude this could be a woman in some foreign country these the they are very creative and they cover their tracks and you almost have to have a private investigator who's got some experience in this stuff number one and who you can afford number two uh who can hopefully entrap them and catch them that's the only way many times the law enforcement Dave just doesn't step up here because there's so many of these cases so I hate to be so and negative but that's the reality it's on the computer and the other end of something in Russia or where you don't know where it's G there's no no telling the it's really tough man yeah I I we've taken this call a bunch over the last 30 years for sure in different forms the internet has made it more yes uh prevalent I guess but um it's not that unusual um but but so I guess yeah be there for her emotionally be there for her Necessities um we're not ever going to put her in charge in the near future of any kind of assets because she's not responsible or capable or competent or whatever the phrase is we want to use that's not those are aren't insulting words they're just observations of where she is obviously but um yeah you you don't um wow so it um and there's a part if I'm Alison and I think there's normal for the family members there's a part of them that are aggravated with Mom oh sure for for not having her crap together any better than this you know but uh so those of you out there this happens almost exclusively to uh elderly that are uh by and let me back it off okay not even elderly 50 years old and Beyond if you want to call that elderly if you're if you're 20 that's ancient okay but if you're 60 it's not ancient okay so but anyway 50 years old and Beyond lonely and disconnected and not involved um where like if Allison is the um the successor trustee in the situation then you know she leans in and is very involved in mom to where she knows this happening correct we're we're you know if they're disconnected even the least amount from the rest of the family and from Friends where somewhat no one is raising a flag going you're do what you know but you got to have a conver you got to be in a conversation to be able to say that and that's not on Allison it's not her fault but that this is who it happens to the lonely that's who it happens to wow how sad create your free every dollar budget today the simplest way to budget for your life