My 85 Y/O father has been traumatized by the sudden death of my younger brother (aged 51) in 2015 so much so that he has been highly susceptible to Nigerian scams which in previous years, he would've laughed at. He has lost upwards of $30,000 and possibly more in this past year alone to various scams. I am the only child living and am aged 61. I don't know how to stop him from responding to these people---it is all done online via e-mail. I did convince him to go to the FBI and we filed an IC3 report but so far nothing has been done (but it was less than two weeks ago; I know they are back-logged). I am also caring for my 83 Y/O mother and unfortunately, she is of no help insofar as controlling his behavior. He is still insisting that these "accounts" are real despite the fact that I keep telling him that the only money existing in these scenarios is the money he is putting OUT.
Few things you might consider:
1a. I think your father's displaying poor judgment, but that's not unusual in these situations. However, I'm not sure that it would rise to the level of dementia such that he couldn't create a DPOA that would authorize you to handle his finances. If so, meet with his attorney when he visits, having explained in confidence to the attorney what the situation is. The DPOA should NOT be a springing one dependent on dementia diagnosis. You need authority now.
1b. If you don't already have joint accounts, suggest that your name be added so you can monitor his expenditures. You might have to pay a stop payment charge, but at least you could prevent $30K worth of outlays.
1c. It wouldn't hurt to discuss the situation with one of your banking reps at the bank he uses. If he pays online, do the same thing.
1d. Also inquire if there are ways to restructure the account (a different type of account) that restricts withdrawals.
1e. If your father is liquidating assets such as stock, contact the brokers or mutual holders, explain the situation (if you don't have DPOA proxy authority) and ask about restricting withdrawals.
2. Contact your ISP and ask about blocking spam. I've found that MS wasn't very good about this and I used to get a lot of junk mail. Comcast is better but has other problems.
3a. There's also an Internet Task Force consisting of the FBI and 2 other agencies, which I don't recall right now. Contact them; another agency on the case might help.
3b. Contact the State Police; they may have a task force as well.
4. When you contact his ISP, ask to speak to someone in their fraud department. They may or may not do something, but they should be aware they're being used as a conduit for the commision of fraud.
5a. Try to think of other ways your father can reach out to help people, especially men, or younger males (such as Boy Scouts), to rechannel his need to help. If your church has young men or boys' programs, contact the head of the church and see if there's a way your father could make donations and be a part of the activity.
Sometimes substitution of good acts and parental feelings toward another person of the same sex can help address the loss a parent feels for a child.
5b. Do your parents have any favorite charities? Pet fostering? Pet placement? If so, or even if not but they're physically able to become involved, try that as a substitute for channeling affection. The goal is to allow him to help those in need, here, and real.
6. And research and print out, and give to your father reports of these notorious Nigerian scams, especially the threats they make as they suck someone in deeper.
7. Contact all your congresspeople and provide information on the scammer's e-mail contacts, and ask if there are any scheduled hearings on these scams. You might be asked to testify, or you could just submit information.
I doubt if this would provide any remediary action such as the FBI could, but at least you'll be bringing this particular scammer to the attention of legislators. In an election year, they might see some mileage in doing something for elders being scammed.
8. I used to get RLTV, Retirement Living TV, which periodically had programs on these kinds of scams. Comcast dropped the channel, and I don't recall specifically if they took actions, or if their goal was primarily public awareness. It wouldn't hurt to contact them; they might have suggestions.
9. Perhaps you could encourage your father to become involved in other charitable activites, such as delivering Meals on Wheels, or helping out at a Senior Center, or volunteering for PBS.
I'm sorry to learn that this scourge has plagued your family. I really hope you can find some channels through which to redirect your father's grief and desire to help peopel.
Have your Dad watch as many as you can find as Dr. Phil had quite a few of them... each of the shows dealt with one person who was caught up in mailing money overseas. Sometimes seeing someone else being scammed will hit home.
Is he sending them a check or taking it out of his debit account or credit card? Could you set up a two-factor authentication on those accounts that would require your approval before those amounts (maybe over $200 or some smaller amount) is paid? I'd research different ways to either weed out those emails before they get to your dad or to require two signatures (or approval) before larger amounts of money are spent.
So, your father is a high functioning career man with a distinguished career, but he's lost a daughter and a son. That's enough to challenge anyone.
You have good insights into his character, motivations, skills and weaknesses. How can you use what those strengths are in this situation? What did he do for DOD? What skills were used? How can you use those skills in this situation?
Was he an analyst, gathering facts and analyzing them? Use that in this situation; research other Nigerian scams all the way up to criminal action.
I'm thinking there might another major factor and that's that as a career man he no longer has a career. I didn't realize until several years after I had quit working (for pay) how much the work ethic is ingrained, how much reinforcement has been a customary and necessary factor, and how absolutely totally frustrating it is to be in a caregiving situation in which you're literally on the opposite side of the situation - catering to someone's else's schedule, to medical schedules, dealing with overworked medical professionals, grumpy discharge planners....The confidence and satisfaction of a job well done, of being admired and respected, is gone.
I wonder if your father feels that way now? If so, how can you build him back up?
Was he an exec? If so, SCORE could use his experience. Was he an accountant? He could volunteer for AARP or at Senior Centers to provide simple assistance for tax preparation.
Find a way that he can help people who REALLY are in need.
You don't want to get control of his finances; so how can you redirect them?
And like Blannie, I think you should at least try to filter out and block the e-mails. In fact, I don't understand how they're able to get through in the first place. When he's not around, get the full addresses and routing data for each of the scammers.
As I recall they're referred to as "full headers". It'll be a lot of numbers, routing addresses and data that probably won't make much sense, but it WILL enable the ISP to block those incoming e-mails.
If they're through a specific ISP, notify that ISP as well.
There are actions you can take without taking over his finances.
It's amazing that the DOD kept him on staff until he was 84. I thought there were mandatory age retirement requirements, but perhaps that's only for the military staff.
With all that technical experience, has he thought of teaching? I would think universities or schools with STEM programs would love to have someone with that kind of experience. Or what about teaching at military academies?
Thus, pay those back taxes or be arrested. What I find amazing is that the scammers ask for the money to be placed on iTune cards. Say what? Right there that would be a major red flag... but people still run out and purchase the iTune cards, and mail the cards to whomever. Then after the fact they realized they where had, they call the police.
Not sure the loss of his son is as connected to this as you are assuming - that kind of grief is truly terrible, but most grieving people do not suddenly start falling for scams left and right.... Can he get a really good psychological evaluation and maybe get some greif counseling, if not a candidate for medication? Is there something else he could do with his time and his talents?
1. Teaching adult education, especially in the computer field. If he can bridge analog to digital, he'd be a perfect coach/teacher for both the younger and older generation.
Most communities in my area have at least one course on teaching computer usage to seniors; I suspect they're quite basic, but I think an 85 year old teaching computers wouldenable the students to bond with him more easily than a 20-something teacher.
And there are also the community ed computer science programs. I think universities are much more elitist and require at least a masters or perhaps a doctorate to teach part-time courses, but that's a different approach and probably wouldn't provide the student reinforcement that could substitute for the young worker admiration.
I don't know if there are any community colleges in your area, but that's another option, for part-time tutoring. There's really not much money in it; I made I think $8/hour when I tutored back in the mid 1990s. But the joy in helping students navigate courses that were problematic for them was worth the personal rewards.
2. Contract work with the DOD; I'm sure he knows more about this than I do. Perhaps it could be on a project basis, with intervals in between for time off. Or maybe it could be part time, 2 - 3 days/weekly.
3. Tech rep for one of the computer companies, or even an ISP. (Comcast could really use someone who is knowledgeable on the tech level!). Dell has top notch computer tech reps, very, very competent and knowledgeable, but I suspect they might be based in India.
I wish I had entered retirement with the credentials your father has!
I wish you and your family all the success and rewards you need, and hope that you'll continue to update us. A success story is always welcome.
If he lost $30,000. and does not see how that happened learn from that experience, then I would argue that he is not competent to manage his finances. It might be ugly, uncomfortable and upsetting, but I would not stand by and allow him to squander his assets. I would see legal advice and then get the evidence you need to proceed. I would at least explore it, since, other options are not very likely to prevent this from happening. And if you don't want to take over the finances, the court can appoint someone to do it, if they deem it necessary.
First we get people offering to provide counterfeit services, now it's a so-called hacker offering to commit illegal hacking.
I've copied the message and intend to report it to the Feds.