My Brother Has Stolen Over $100,000 From My Parents

Zander shops all the top term insurance companies to save you money. Get started at zander.com. It's recently come to my attention that my oldest brother has been stealing money from my parents. What started off as borrowing gas money has turned into lying his way into a massive car loan in my mom's name, stealing credit cards without my parents' knowledge. And so my parents have more than a hundred thousand dollars in debt now. And that's not even including their mortgage. They're both almost in their seventies. My mom's on disability. My dad has 40,000 in his 401k and they think that's a lot. And I'm just, I just don't see a way that he's ever going to be able to retire. And I understand that me and my wife are not financially responsible for them, but I'm trying to walk through this with them, but I'm no expert. And every time I learn more about their financial situation, I see less and less of a solution other than bankruptcy. And so what should I tell them to do? Yeah. So two different paths. I mean, if you're going to go like full on, he has stolen. Did he forge signatures like for the car loan? How did that happen? So from what I could gather, it seems like he's lying to my mom on what she is signing and then gets her to sign something without her reading what it actually is. Well, crap. Because I was going to say- So if they took this to court, they'd be like, ma'am, that's your signature, right? And she's like, yeah. But I just didn't read the document and that's her fault. I mean, to a degree. I mean, do you know what I'm saying? There's a level of responsibility that she did not take. I mean, it's really elder abuse is what this is. That's probably your best case is fraud and elder abuse. Yeah. If they would take legal action, that's what it would be. But I'm scared for, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, first I would freeze their credit yesterday so that no more I would also contact every lender on that credit report and say, hey, this was fraud. This is elder abuse. This guy took out all of these loans without the permission. You know, he basically coaxed them into it. And so then we go from there. I mean, do they still have contact with this brother? Do they know about this? They know about it. My mom just had a stroke last week, this dude is like the scumburger of all scumburgers to this, to his own parents. Yeah. And we're trying to find him right now. He's, he's been on crystal meth before, so I'm not shocked if this is having that involved again. So we're trying to find him and figure that out because he has the truck. He has, there's also an RV that has $250,000 on it that I think is in his dad's name. That's it's a whole ordeal. So I just, and I'm worried that my parents aren't going to file any kind of charges. It's hard to, how do you do that to your first born son? You know, I get that. So, well, I think they need to understand if they don't pursue this, then they might just be on the hook with us for the rest of their life. Yeah. That's the scary part. And it's a loan, Phil, right? So the problem is too, if, yeah. So if he stops paying and that truck gets repoed and all that's in your mom's name, I mean, it'll all be on her. They're going to come after her for it. Is he even making the payments? He has not made a single payment. No. So, I mean, are there, have they repoed this? I guess you don't even know. He does still, he does still have the truck. Not for long. I mean, yeah. I don't know. I don't know how long he's going to have it for, but like. I'd call the repo man myself. Yeah. If you can find him. So has he disappeared? Well, yeah. He turned off all of his location services. Once he figured out that. You knew. You're onto him. Have you filed a police report? I believe I told my mom that she needs to, I don't know that she has yet. I actually found his location this morning through his daughter. And so I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure out what I need to do. Yep. Okay. So the hard position you're in, and correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like you are doing all the proactive work in this situation. You're worrying about your parents. You're trying to find your brother. You're telling your parents what they should do. Like you're kind of the one heading up all of this and none of this is your issue. I understand it's your parents and you love them. So like, I'm just saying from a top tier perspective, the hard place that's going to happen for you, Phil, is you're going to have a wonderful logical game plan because you're a smart, reasonable person. And you're going to say, mom and dad, you need to do A, B, C, and D. Brother, they're coming after you for these charge and this and this, and this is going to happen. You're going to have a plan laid out of what should be happening. And in any common sense scenario, and the problem is if they choose not to move forward, that's their fault. That's their decision. It's not yours. And you can't make them do something or even convince them to change their minds. So I think it's going to be a discouraging situation for you, Phil, here in the next few months, because I think you're going to realize my parents are probably naive because he's been on drugs and still they're signing papers for him. I mean, like I would be going through like, oh my gosh, so detailed if that was me, but. They need to be as angry as we are. And they're not. And they're just like, well, I guess it is what it is. Like what is their response right now? What's their attitude? Well, I mean, my mom feels horrible that she didn't see this coming sort of thing, but she doesn't really have the health to take this on. And my dad has not done anything financial in their entire marriage. He just doesn't know anything about it. He doesn't want to know anything about it. And I'm like, I know that I'm going to have to, you know, eventually most of the time they sign off their finances to their children to take care of them. But I'm like, they haven't done that for me yet. So I can't I can't do anything about it. Right. So your dad is just sitting there. Well, yeah, all this is being I don't know that my dad even knows to the extent of how much debt he has. He just goes to work, makes a paycheck and comes home. That's all he ever does. Yeah. Yeah. My mom has always handled the finances. And now she's she's learned about some of this stuff in the past and hasn't told my dad about it. And now it's blown up to way more than I thought it would ever be. Yeah. How much debt are they in personally, besides all the stuff that your brother brought in? I would say not including their mortgage. They probably have anywhere from like 15 to 20,000. And that's a car loan and various credit cards. Okay. And how much are they making a year? I don't know. Yeah. But my guess would be anywhere from like 60 to 70,000, because it's just my dad. My mom is on disability. Yeah. If you're going to be involved, you're gonna have to get financial power of attorney to actually make any moves. And that might be wise based on how things have been going with your dad, not being involved. Mom had the stroke. I think now's the time to have some really hard conversations about the future. Yeah. So I think Phil, I mean, because I feel that burden right in the sense of like, you see what's going on and they don't. So I almost would just have a meeting, sit them both down and tell them, Hey, this is exactly what the situation is. I need to know numbers. I want to be able to help you and let's make a game plan. And then it would be up to them to be the ones executing it unless they want your help in doing so. But I mean, I would give a latch, you know, a last ditch effort to try to do what I can to help them see and know what's going on. But unless they give you the power to do something, they're going to have to be the ones that, you know, make those decisions. And I don't know if they will. And that's hard. It's very, very hard. Zander is the best place to find term life insurance to protect your family. Visit zander.com for quotes today.