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I can't believe we are in this situation.... My Aunt in her late sixties (not elderly per se) has set up residence in our tiny home. She just went through a divorce and got fired from her traveling emergency room nursing job. She needs a permanent address to collect SS, get Medicare and passport. This part is all good for me. I love giving her a sense of belonging and it's nice to have a helping hand around the house.


She joined Match.com and wham the love of her life is wooing her. He sent her an unbelievable picture (looks like a magazine picture) but she is hook line and sinker. Supposedly some kind of money manager in England. They write to each other, text and speak on the phone occasionally (he has a French accent). He is in some sort of financial peril. She has already sent him 30,000.00 that I know about and the bank stopped her from making another transfer. Since then she got money from her retirement accounts and is now crying poverty. Not asking ME for money....more like not going to the doctor for an ear infection cause she can't afford the co pay. She couldn't get her son a wedding present even though weeks earlier she said she got 65000.00 from her retirement account. It's been a year or more and she honestly believes it will work out in the end. I mean I've tried to be supportive. I also intelligently dis-proved everything this "entity" sent to her as "proof" of his reality. She defends him at every turn. Now, I am a business owner, a former credit manager, and I've worked skip tracing for collections (before computers). Her response to my expertise is "You've never dealt with this magnitude of money and the rules change when your in the big league.".


I want to stop her from losing everything. How can I? Do I have any legal rights over someone in my household?

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Is it possible that she is suffering from cognitive impairment? Could that have caused her to be fired from her job? You might want to write a letter to her doctor detailing the issue to see if he or she can do an evaluation of her mental status.
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I would report him to authorities in England and in France, along with Match.com. I would also report it to the state Bureau of Investigation. Chances are she isn’t his first victim. He may also be running this scam with other women besides her. I would tell her that if she continues this and ends up broke that you will not assist her financially. The fact that she could not pay a co-pay for a medical appointment speaks volumes. If she is not paying rent she is already taking advantage of your hospitality. What happens if she becomes truly ill and has no money. She probably will not be eligible for Medicaid assistance because of giving money away. You need to distance yourself so that her financial mess does not become your financial mess.
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oh gosh its just unbelievable (sorry) what some people can fall for. and its HER hard earned money going down the tubes. id rather give all my money to the local homeless shelter, than some UNKNOWN boob online. maybe she is depressed after getting a divorce, I guess she feels lonely? maybe join Match yourself. try to bait the guy and see if he will start asking you for money also. Then show aunt he does this to others and is a crook. He probably getting money left and right from older lonely ladies. :(
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I would report it to Match.com, making some vague reference to things like this being bad for their public image when it becomes known. There may likely be nothing they can do, but I’d take a stab at them anyway. As for your aunt, unless you can legally prove her incompetence, it’s unfortunately her right to squander her money. I’m sorry this is happening
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Wow. This is tough. I don’t think you have any rights over your aunt unless you have financial POA or, if she were proved incompetent, guardianship. If she’s competent and just staying with you, there isn’t much you can do if she wants to toss her money away. It doesn’t sound like you have a real good idea of just how much money she has, but she’s already blown through it if she can’t afford a co-pay. Sad to say, once he learns she has no more money, her “true love” will disappear if he ever really existed in the first place. You can be there to pick up the pieces, you can notify Match.com although I’m sure there’s something in their fine print about scams, you can even report the scam to the local news, but I think that without an international search that would prove fruitless, there isn’t much you legally can do. Oh, and I wouldn’t loan her money. A lesson to be learned.
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