Wasn't there a list of romance scammers out there?

[Peregrine Took]

I was checking on my SIL's address to send a xmas present and saw a listing of people who live at an her house. There was only her name but then I saw the name of a strange man I never heard of was, also, listed as living there a few months ago but seems to have moved back to his original address out of state.

I have lost touch with her over the last 6 months so I don't know what is going on. She is 88 and is a lonely widow -on the internet where she will be friend anyone.
I warned her about doing that so she de-friended ME!

Our nephew thinks this guy might be a scammer or an identity thief. He's going to call her to find out what's going on but in the meantime I was trying to find a list of romance scammers that existed back in the day but I can't find it any longer.

Thanks.

[Botany]

1. Get your mother's checkbook and credit cards

"They" got my mom for > 30K. There is an industry to steal from the elderly.

[Peregrine Took]

2. She lives 2000k miles away and would never let me near her checkbook. Sister in law.

[Botany]

4. My mom didn't get taken by a "romance scammer" but she did get taken

These are very sophisticated operations and many times they have an American addresses but
their base of operations is offshore and much of the time out of India. If you have family close
by that can get her debit/credit cards along with her checking account then do so. My mom
will turn 91 in April, she has a PhD in Nutrition, has taught nutrition and bio-chem, and did
the first online class @ Ohio State but "they" were able to get to her.

BTW getting the checkbook is important because once "they" have the account and routing #s
"they" have the keys to the kingdom. If your mom has bills you can set up auto payments and
if she has any bills you can do it w/a POA and electronic checks.

[ShazzieB]

6. The person possibly being scammed is not Peregrine Took's mom.

[yonder]

3. What Botany said.

My own 87 year old mother has been a victim at least twice, to the tune of some 2-3k, made worse by her pride in thinking she is more independent than she really is which leads her to refuse advice and direction.

One romance scammer claimed to have lost his "business" aboard an off-shore oil rig due to an "explosion" and needed help to restart. There went a thousand bucks or so. If I ever came across him he would be sure to lose his "business", if you catch my drift.

There are despicable, nasty people out there with no moral center. I would like to think they will somehow, eventually, get their due.

[Peregrine Took]

7. This guy has managed to get his name on an adress site for her address.

Its a private home and she has lived there alone for 10 years since my brother died. No body else has ever lived in that house and now - his name is listed there.

Is it possible she doesn't know him and he, having googled the house (nice!) has somehow got himself listed as a resident in an attempt to take it away from her via house theft fraud. She's pretty ditsy about things maybe she hasn't been paying her taxes?

[yonder]

8. Yeah, who knows how they insert themselves into other peoples lives?

I'm thinking they could easily identify targets (your SIL, my mom) by any 3rd party association (friend of a friend, etc.) and then work to ID an address. After that they could just give that address as their own whenever asked: doctors office, big box stores, Joe's Tackle Shop, etc. Eventually their name gets tagged to that address and Presto!, fraud in progress. I dunno?

In the case of my mom, she's too casual in her dealings with entities outside of family. She's also very religious and so that's a whole other can of worms. Looking through her bookcases, there's all kind of claptrap that she earnestly sent her special faith dollars to special faith partners for charlatan bullshit in order to gain special faith standing when she eventually arrives at those gates. (The cynicism is all mine).

This shit just makes me sick though. Preying on vulnerable people whether they're 8 or 80 or in between — there's got to be a special place for them in the end.

Good luck with your SIL.

[ShazzieB]

5. I've never heard of a site like that.

There are sites that you can supposedly "verify" people, but they usually charge a fee (which they don't tell you about until after doing a search). Sorry I can't help.

I'm glad to hear her son is now involved. As a close relative (next of kin?), he should be in a better position to intervene than you are. Good luck to all of you!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. This is in part why I am determined to move into

independent/assisted living at some point.

I'm 74 years old, in excellent health at this point. But I know that can change. And I have spent the last year, along with my sister, getting our older brother and his wife into assisted living. What is so frustrating about this is that they put off the move years beyond when they should have. Brother went blind some years back. Finally gave up driving years after he should have. Sister-in-law has many health issues, and also gave up driving some years back, when it became physically impossible.

They live in a 2 story house purchased in 1980. Sister-in-law was not able to climb the stairs for some three years, so living on the main floor. The only bathroom there is a 2 piece bathroom. Dear lord. Three years ago she should have told my brother "I'm out of here" and actually gotten out.

The good news is that my sister and I, along with the help of our nephew (other sister's son) were able to visit about 8 or so assisted living places to figure out where they should go. We found a truly wonderful place, and they are supposed to be moved in as of today.

Here's the thing. DO NOT delay moving into some kind of care facility until it becomes a crises. Sadly, that's exactly what my brother and his wife have done. There's been a lot of scrambling to get them relocated. And oh, they are hoarders. They've lived in that same home for over 40 years, and rarely gotten rid of anything. My sister and I did a lot of heavy lifting to start the process of getting rid of stuff. To all of you reading this, look at your own home. Get rid of stuff.

Honestly, it helps to move often as an adult. The first ten years my husband and I were married, we moved about every other year. That kept us from accumulating too much stuff. Then we stayed in the same place for a long time. I lived there from 1990 to 2008, when I moved away because we were divorcing. I took out all of my things that I wanted, and left everything else behind. He'd left me for another women (it happens) and they continue to live in our old house. Personally, had the divorce never happened, I'd have gotten us out of there and into a smaller, more appropriate place for two people. Oh, well.

I currently live in a two bedroom, two bathroom, three skylight place in Santa Fe that is perfect for me. Because it's so small, and because I have a cleaning service every other week, I simply don't acquire too much stuff. Although I do need to cull my books.