At this point I am willing to try anything to make her understand that she is not talking to Russell Crowe. If I could reach out to Mr. Crowe or his manager, I would do whatever it takes to get her to understand that she needs to stop.This month, Septermber she found out that she has Breast Cancer and will be going into surgery in October. Her doctor knows of this texting and he has mentioned to her she needs to save her money because of not knowing what she might need in the future after surgery. She is not truthful with Dr.We asked the Dr. if there's anything we can do, he said since she is buying and sending cards to this person, there's nothing to do.
Do you have any suggestions??
Thank you,
Rio1063
My suggestion is to take your mother's phone with no access to internet. Contact your Attorney General's Office and report the scam. Your mother is a vulnerable adult and should not be taken advantage of in this manner. She will need her money for her care and not passing it on to criminals to support their families.
Speak to the doctor again and ask for thorough cognitive testing, not a mini test but a full work up. If you can get her to go and she’s diagnosed mentally incompetent then you may use your POA (if you’re designated as such) or you can go to court and apply for guardianship.
A step you can take for now, if she agrees, is signing her up for a credit monitoring and protection service. You can tell a little fib and say your job is paying for employees and their families or something similar, so you can see if she’s losing more than just gift card money.
Get her a prepaid credit card and let her use that.
She clearly has either mental illness or dementia (her good judgement is gone).
Is she diagnosed with dementia or does she have Mets to her brain from the breast cancer?
No doctor is going to solve this problem except to diagnose her with something (like dementia at a level that requires the intervention of a PoA).
Are you her PoA? If not, this may be a tricky situation to get under control. You can try taking screen shots of her texts and presenting them to her bank and giving them a heads-up that she is being scammed. They are often helpful in these situations.
I have a friend whose 80-something mom was swindled out of her entire life savings and her house and car by a similar scam. The mom STILL believes this Prince Charming is a real person who is going to materialize and marry her any day now.
My friend ( her daughter and only child) tried to get court ordered guardianship because the mom had no will/ DPOA and no diagnosis. The mom went through court-ordered testing for dementia and it was found inconclusive. She’s now living in a slum motel on nothing but her meager Social Security and eating the motel breakfast plus whatever junk food she can afford from the convenience store next door. Really sad.