My 83 year old mother was recently evicted from her apartment. She is on a fixed income. She recently retired and received a small lump sum from a pension in March 2025. Several months later, she started asking my family for money. This is how it all started. While refusing to keep dishing out money, I asked to look at her bank statements. She produced six months of statements and I noticed immediately that there were deposits and withdrawls coming from various cash advance companies. For example: Moneylion, Instacash, Dave, Inc., Brigit and various others. I confronted her about it in May (when I received the info) and told her that she has to close her account immediately, as she is being scammed. Fast forward to yesterday when I finally convinced her to go to the bank. Come to find out that just last week, she received a check in the mail (dated 3/31/2021) and she cashed it. As of now, she is $1900 in arrears. The bank told her to call corporate and dispute as many claims as possible. As I don't know if she was scammed or just desperate for money, she befriended a 50ish year old at her apartment back in November. My mother is extremely lonely and always complained that no one visits, calls, etc. Her family all work full-time and cannot always get away from everyday life, but she was always included in holidays, birthdays, Sunday dinners, etc. What concerns me is that my suspicion kind of points me toward the neighbor she met. While I don't know much about him, and I don't like to judge, something seems extremely questionable. She puts him on a pedestal and has constantly told us what a good guy he is. He put out a Go Fund Me page and totally trashed her family. Mind you, she was constantly asking for $20, $40 from myself and her grandchildren. As of right now, she resides with me and she has $40 to her name until her next SS check in August. She spends her money like she has a full time decent paying job. She has always been like this. Since she moved in (about 2 weeks now), she has dined out almost everyday, made purchases that truly are unnecessary. It's as if she doesn't get it. I plan to go to the police with the bank statements this weekend to file a report.
My mom would get these and use up all of her social security check before she got it, requiring her to get more so she could pay her bills and eat. It was a losing cycle for her, quite lucrative for the lenders, 25 to 35% charge for all money lent, even for a week, so 500.00 loan cost over 600.00 to repay.
My mom did not have dementia, her behavior was identical to your moms. It was just entitled speeding without a care for tomorrow.
It is predatory lending but not illegal, user beware.
Just curious, is she still in contact with this neighbor?
If she is living with you, she needs to pay for her room and board, she doesn't get a free ride because she spends money like she is printing it.
Time to go to MD for diagnosis. At the point she is diagnosed, and if you intend to have her continue living with you, you will need to be made representative payee on her SS with letters from the doctors attesting to her inability to manage her money, and you may need to see an attorney for guardianship so that you can safeguard her SS funds, which is all she has.
Good luck.
Stop giving her money and take her credit cards away and give her a reusable Visa card that has a limit of money on it.