• 2 posts
  • 11 comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: February 2nd, 2024
  • It is hard to defend his behavior, certainly. But I think I’m coming to grips with the toll aging takes on people. The man who raised me was no idiot. But this frail, lonely, isolated person is not who he used to be.

    There’s a reason these scams target who they target.

“Welcome to our enhanced privacy features! Please start by giving us your e-mail or by logging in with your Google or Facebook account.”

Bitch, those are the exact things I’m trying to keep my information away from. And, no, I don’t trust Mozilla as far as I can throw them, either.

  • OP here. This is part of my issue with this whole situation. He’s not a dumb guy. He knows better. Or knew better. Always been good with money, always had a cynical view of any institution (correctly, as it turns out). In addition to figuring out how to get him out of this I need to come to grips with the fact he’s not the same man who I knew.

  • I think this is part of the problem. He doesn’t have a strong social circle and most of what it had been had been her friends, now mostly lost. He’s still pretty healthy but has other life situations keeping him trapped in place. Figuring out how to get him out of the house might be a good next step, once we can break him of this.

My recently widowed father (72) is planning a trip across the country to meet a woman who he claims called him by accident and with whom he has since built a romantic (remote) relationship. Here’s what he’s shared with me:

  • He received a “wrong number” call from a woman that led to a number of other conversations online and on the phone that started to take on a romantic tone.
  • He believes she is real because he has checked her out online, including validating that she is indeed the CEO of her company, is 40 years old, and is originally from Taiwan. Haven’t seen this myself.
  • She says she runs this company with her brother in Canada and her father back in Taiwan. The details of the company were not clear to me.
  • They have exchanged photos but not video because her webcam is not working.
  • He is planning a trip to Los Angeles (from the East Coast of US) in a few months to meet her in person. She said her driver will pick him up at the airport.
  • No money has been asked for or sent, according to him.

This is obviously a scam, right? But, without there being an ask for money I can’t figure out the angle and haven’t been able to convince him to disengage.

It is either going to be an ask for money to help her overseas family or a “can’t lose” investment in her company. I’m guessing she’ll back out of the travel plans last minute so they never meet OR he’s going go there and have his organs harvested.

Does anyone recognize this scam? What should we expect next? Has anyone else successfully talked their elderly loved ones out of one of these?