Internet scammer targeted my mother

Rereally

I'm hoping someone has some suggestion on how to handle this situation.

About a month ago, my mother somehow began texting with a scammer. I deleted everything on her phone to do with this guy. And I immediately bought the full Norton Lifelock service.

Today she emailed an address he had given her. I didn't know that she had actually written it down. She have him her phone number, address and full name.

I'm reluctant to take the phone away. She plays games on it all the time and chats with family and friends.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what else I should do?

Thanks

SusanB-dil

You should be able to block him on the phone calls.  Find out where she wrote down the info, too, and of course get rid of it.  You should be able to go into the e-mail settings and block him there, as well.  Also, this is a bit technical, but if you can get the internal internet headers, you can turn him in to the IP people (maybe you know someone who could assist with that?)...

Rereally

Thanks. I'll look into that.

SusanB-dil

also adding - if the e-mail is actually in the phone, you could contact your provider.

If you are POA, depending on what 'scammer' is doing, you could also notify the police.

Rescue mom

Can you change her phone number? It used to be relatively quick & easy, but I guess could be something new contract  rules about it., also block his number, hope she doesn’t know to unblock.

I would also definitely contact police. In my area they can offer tech and other help for targeted seniors. Not arrest (unless he’s done something g) but make it harder and threaten problems if he continues. That actually  would probably be:my first step bc they could possibly do more with one visit. 

If she welcomes/wants his calls, that’s a little different, but maybe still possible for cops to help.

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Fairyland

I replaced my mom’s landline and mobile with a GrandPad, which I control, for this reason.  I used TeleCalm for the landline for a while, but now have moved her to AL with only the GrandPad. She needs some reminders to use it but I have got some family and friends to call her on it, and some have downloaded its app so they can share photos and messages which she likes, when she remembers to look at it!

I removed the internet capability and a few other options but could easily put them back if needed (I doubt it!). She also uses it for music.

harshedbuzz

Rereally-

Is she still living alone? It might be time to rethink this is her reasoning skills are no longer sharp enough to keep her safe in the world.

I would disconnect the cell- she can keep it for games. I would get a landline and put Telecalm on it. Even if you manage to shut this one individual down, another will pop up- it becomes like a game of wack-a-mole. 

The thing is, a person with poor executive function and cognitive skills is not safe connected to the outside. If the scammer fleeces her, you don't get a do-over. That money- which will be needed for care- will be gone.

Signed-

HB whose mom thought dad was playing games on the computer when he was really day-trading away $350K and had over $1K/year in internet security suites on auto-renewal for at least 5 years. 

toolbeltexpert

This is so terrible I hate the low life's that do this. I know someone who has lost thousands to scammers same type of thing. They even sent mail so be watching if they have her address.

MN Chickadee

I would agree with the others that this is indicative of a bigger problem. This isn't the only scammer, there will be others. And it probably means she is not safe in many other ways, financially and otherwise. Hopefully you have things in place already. If not time to look into more care and oversight and your legal rights. If/when you have POA you should freeze her credit with all three agencies. This means in order to open any credit card or loan in her name it would have to be unfrozen with a pin number only you would have. But that doesn't protect her bank accounts. I would discontinue the cell service and let her play games on the phone, change the password on her email and bank accounts, or whatever you have to do. It is probably time she has no access to her accounts. Some spending money in her purse and nothing more. It's not worth the risk. PWD can and do lose a lot of money if family doesn't step in at the right time. My MIL is intelligent and who does not have dementia nearly fell for a phone scam recently involving a fake publishers clearing house rouse. They are very very good at preying on seniors. Take all precautions or she won't have her money for her care down the road. Better to be slightly too soon or slightly too cautious than the alternative.

dayn2nite2

Scammers are like cockroaches, if you see one, there are 100 lurking in the shadows that have either already contacted her or are getting ready to.  Guaranteed she's already on a "sucker list" and I'd disconnect the phone/change the number and block all incoming except a few family.

Rereally

Thank you for all the suggestions. They are very helpful. I do have a POA so that helps. And we do live together so I have 24/7 access. Until recently, she was just forgetful and sporadically confused. This is the first real sign of decline. I didn't think to check her phone. Believe me, I am now checking it several times a day.

Unfortunately, she learned to unblock and taking the phone away was traumatic for both of us. So I ended up deleting every record of him on her the phone. So I don't have anything to give the police anymore. If he comes back, I'll do a better job keeping his information, though. I do know the phone number was from the Ivory Coast. I assume it was an organized group.

Lifelock seems to be monitoring everything. Since I'm paying they don't seem to have a problem with me managing her account. I immediately took all of her credit cards and checks away. I deleted her credit card on her iPhone so she shouldn't be able to pay for anything. She hasn't known how to find her account information for several years. She wanted me to manage all of her accounts for almost 10 years. Right now I am mostly worried about identity theft. Last night I discovered that you can put a fraud alert with all the credit bureaus. It is good for 1 year. I hope that protects us.

I'll look into the GrandPad. Most of her family is all over the world so I have make sure it will work for everyone. I'm looking into a new phone number. I didn't know you could have a limited contact list so I'm going to check into that as well.

Again, thank you for all of the suggestions. I'm following up on them.

harshedbuzz

Rereally wrote:

Unfortunately, she learned to unblock and taking the phone away was traumatic for both of Last night I discovered that you can put a fraud alert with all the credit bureaus. It is good for 1 year. I hope that protects us.

You can also freeze her credit with the 3 major bureaus which will prevent anyone taking a loan with her information. You'd get a password should you need to unfreeze it for any reason.

Fairyland

I am about to return to my home country and the Grandpad has been successfully and safely communicating with authorised friends/family in 3 other countries.  One SIL and one grandchild in university have also added nice photos with comments too for mum to enjoy. It is not cheap but has cost less than the past 2-3 years of scams, and has fantastic support which I have used several times.

It also has a number of games, not an interest for us but lots of people do use them.

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harshedbuzz

Rereally-

I can really appreciate that it can be hard to take over a parent's life and make decisions that will render them unhappy or angry-- especially in this middle stage where some skills remain as muscle memory and serve as entertainment you don't need to organize. 

But it might help you to think about this differently. One helpful mantra is that you are doing these things for your mother-- not to her. 

Firstly, there's the POA. Back when your presumably rational mom signed this document, she entrusted you to keep her future self safe and solvent. You have a legal and moral duty to honor that. 

Secondly, it kind of helps to think of scammers in more physical terms-- if someone bashed your mom over her head at the grocery store and made off with her purse containing her checkbook, SSA card, Photo ID and all her credit cards you would have no second thoughts about closing them and reopening others.

Yeah, doing so is a PITA and you'll need time to allow the banks to vet the POA, but you'd do it. A few days before my dad died, my mom put her handbag down in Target and walked away from it. We checked lost & found, but it turns out the person who found it put it in the safe unbeknownst to the person we were calling. I spent an entire afternoon with my mom (who is not my parent-with-dementia) and the phone/laptop getting new credit card numbers, accounts sets up, a new license, and then redirecting her pension and their SS deposits to new accounts. The SSA bit was doable through the online portal, I recall, but it required a couple months and they sent checks in the meantime.

One silver lining to this debacle was that dad had a bunch of internet security auto-renewals- one of those sent an email to mom's account asking for an update. When I called to explain the situation, it turned out there were 3 with Norton alone. 

HB

Rereally

Update: This scammer seems to have disappeared. When he realized my mom had no access to finances and that she was too confused to follow any of his instructions, he stopped responding to her.

I am really grateful to all of you for the suggestions.  I've implemented many of them already and am working the rest.

I'm especially thankful to all people who reminded me that I had to do whatever was necessary to protect her.  Except every time I did whatever had to done, there was a fight.  Yesterday, I finally realize that I was the reason there was a fight.  I was fighting back instead of calming her down.  I called the helpline and, boy, did they help.  I was given some suggestions how to handle her anger.  It's already began to work.

sophirolr

Hrllo! They also wanted to cheat my mother, but at the expense of an online casino. Fortunately, I managed to find out all about it before she threw the money in there. I decided to find her a good gambling site if she wanted to. So when I read  https://fanduel.pissedconsumer.com/review.html I decided to try it. Everything works perfectly and no one fools her for money there. She plays there for fun

Christy625

We had a situation like this in May.  The scammer had sent my MIL an email and she clicked on it and he gained control of the computer.  She went and bought $5,000 worth of gift cards that he directed her to buy.  AND...she would not answer any of our phone calls.  We didn't know where she was.  We had the police come to the house.  Having to sit with the detective stayed with her more than us talking.  Maybe have an officer come talk to her and explain the danger.  Also they can record the information (not that they can really do anything at this point).  To this day she brings up that investigator.  Good luck!

sophirolr

They also wanted to cheat my mother, but at the expense of an online casino. Fortunately, I managed to find out all about it before she threw the money in there. I decided to find her a good gambling site if she wanted to. So when I read https://fanduel.pissedconsumer.com/review.html I decided to try it. Everything works perfectly and no one fools her for money there. She plays there for fun

aannaa

Haha, something similar happened to my friend

Mckangel

Something like this happened to my mother shortly after my father passed. I don’t know if what she heard was real; but she claimed some had called saying that her name had been used by a criminal, and did she want police protection. I tried the number that called, and never got a response. Similarly, a few years ago, someone from Publishers Clearinghouse (supposedly) contacted her, and instructed her to purchase a Walmart card. Thankfully, at the time, she had the sense to contact me.  Be vigilant. I had access to my mother’s phone account to monitor her calls and any voicemail was directed to my email. I abhor these scam artists.