Counteracting someone taking advantage of aging parent

[Anonymous]

Has anyone had experience with a non-family "friend" or employee taking advantage of an aging parent? Something akin to the age-old scenario of a younger caretaker manipulating a senior into giving them money, changing their will, etc.

How do you combat this? How do you convince them they are being manipulated? How did your situation play out?

My parent is in thrall to an employee who is turning him against friends. For example, Employee tells him, "So-and-so said terrible things about you. And remember how she did you wrong? Remember how I've always been the one who really cares?" Parent does NOT remember, so he just believes Employee.

I suspect Employee is also wheedling cash and gifts. Employee is with him daily, I live states away. So what can I do? He gets angry when I question Employee. And I am afraid to push too hard, lest he tell Employee and it spurs her to turn him against ME.

[Anonymous]

You need to let it go and stay out of it, OP. It's not your business.

[Anonymous]

Yes, somebody called my mom daily to be friends then said she won the Publisher's Clearing House and they needed $16,000 to get her the money.

The person told her that we controlled her money and that we didn't care about her well being and proof would be that we would not give her the $16,000.

My brother was power of attorney, and she could only get $5,000 at one time without check with him. she called him and she was pissed he would not give her the money, "just like the "friend" said would happen".

We also paid all her bills with her money.

It literally took everybody in the family and a good friend and a priest telling her that she was being taken advantage of. It was amazing how quickly she turned on us and was willing to believe we were the bad ones.

Who is power of attorney?
Also, who is the "employee"? Fire them or if they work for an organization call the head.

[Anonymous]

Call the area agency on aging in their location and get advice. That’s illegal.

[Anonymous]

I am sure you are doing this already OP but just in case wanted to mention: document every single thing

Good luck OP. I am sorry you are dealing with this.

[Anonymous]

Well, my mom got swindled by a romance scammer - a younger, handsome man who pretended to be in love with her and took more than $90K from her. But that's different.

[Anonymous]

Find out if she has an arrest record. Depending on what you find you may go to the police.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to let it go and stay out of it, OP. It's not your business.

Np found the person who thinks it is ok to steal from an elderly person.

Op we have had family members and workers take advantage. We had the person removed from working in the apartment complex because they realized thar this person was taking advantage. Did not get the money back unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Very hard to get money back. I have dealt with this with both outside swindlers and a sibling and cousin. Semi-estranged convinced mom, who I had been close with my whole life, I was the problem. She also convinced mom not to get any more cognitive testing in the future. Spoke with a lawyer who specializes in eldercare issues and there really wasn't much I could do, and then I had my own family emergencies. People on here will tell you-call this agency and do that. My experiences is it has to be quite extreme for these agencies to do much and it's very hard with family. Those who knew my sibling rarely got along with mom prior are either dead, have dementia or trying to beg for handouts as well.

[Anonymous]

I would hire a PI and dig into their background

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would hire a PI and dig into their background

You would spend thousands to likely find nothing? If OP doesn't look at the big picture and figure out getting control of finances and whether parents can even handle independent living OP will learn just how small an amount this is. It won't be long until it's more like $25,000 or $100,000. If this truly was a major overcharge, this is merely an expensive wake up call before things get far worse.

[Anonymous]

Employee is with him daily, I live states away.

I had this exact problem. Mom was getting scammed by a caregiver. I directly told my mom stop giving her money right before I drove back to Virginia.

And what was the first fscking thing my mom did after I left? She gave the caregiver $3,000. Grrrrr!

The solution was to move my mom to assisted living up here and to take complete control of her finances.

[Anonymous]

This thread is terrifying me.

[Anonymous]

Dad and StepMom were moved to AL this year. We had to take away StepMom’s check book. She has a cash allowance at Assisted Living. She also has a credit card that she does not use.

Previously, I’m quite sure they had employees embezzle at least three times (probably $75k in the past few years).

We fired one as soon as my brother became POA. She was billing for excessive time cleaning the hallways of their apartment buildings. According to LinkedIn, she’s a NYS employee who was moonlighting 90 hours a month!

[Anonymous]

Hire an attorney