What can you do to someone who willingly keep falling for scams?
As per title, this person lives in the household with me. Despite all the education and logic explanation, he continues to believe the other person at the other side will give him riches as long as he transfers a small sum of money over.
The thing is he doesn’t have the money and he always keep pestering the family to lend to him. It has gotten so bad that it has involved into shouting matches and him still not seeing the light, unless he gets his objective which is the money.
He has fallen for every scam possible, pork scam, love scam, investment scams, and still doesn’t see wrong. The wrong is that he didn’t “complete” the journey, that’s why he lost all those “money” he’s supposed to have.
Has anyone encountered such person and can you share what did you do? Thought of filing report but since no harm or loss, he probably will get away with this and restart the cycle.
Netizens’ comments
- Excessive gullibility to the point of significant impact to daily life is a warning sign for Alzheimer’s.
- Shit, this reminds me of my grandma back then. Heard from my parents when I was young that she got a ring ‘stolen’. She was walking around the neighborhood, a man came up and said something like “your son at home want to borrow your ring for a bit, he asked me to help pick up from you”. Grandma just took off the ring and handed to the man without question. Police couldn’t do anything; no witness, no CCTV, grandma couldn’t even string together a coherent statement for the police.
- This is a very difficult topic for me to comment on because my mother went through the exact experience you are describing. She fell for a honeypot scam and divorced my father in hopes of marrying the scammer and leaving the country. My parents were already in their late fifties when this happened and there was very little love between them. Still, she gave away all of their joint savings and subsequently divorced my father, leaving him penniless.
After this scam, it seemed like a screw went loose in her brain. She had always been an educated and intelligent woman, so none of us could understand what was happening to her. She would actively seek out more scammers and, like the person you describe, borrowed money from everyone she knew to transfer ‘small’ sums of money to the various scammers. 1k, 2k, 3k here and there, adds up to plenty.
There was very little we (my brother and I) could do as her children. She was still working at the time and we had no access to her bank accounts. She even tried to convince us that one of her scammer boyfriends was legit through having us listen in to a voice call. Well, this American boyfriend of hers had a noticeably strong Nigerian accent. Nothing against Nigerian people, but it was just ridiculous. My brother ended up yelling at the scammer who quickly hung up, leading my mother to burst into tears.
In the end, at a loss, we notified her cousin and he stepped in to manage the situation. This resulted in her living with him and his family for years, wildly overstaying her welcome. My brother and I took the opportunity to go NC because it had become impossible to reason with her.
After many years, we slowly resumed contact with her and by and large, she appeared fine. However, earlier this year, she fell for yet another scam. She claimed she’d been scammed by HDB (yes, seriously) but records showed she’d transferred the money to an individual’s bank account. The money was borrowed from my brother. She paid it off over a couple of months, but the damage has been done.
I honestly have no idea what to do. I suppose I am as helpless as you, OP. For now, I limit my interactions with her as it seems like she will never learn. I proposed therapy, etc, but it has all fallen on deaf ears. I know this response isn’t any help, but I hope it lends you some comfort that your case is not unique. It’s extremely difficult to watch someone you know and care for fall for such ridiculous things. The best solution would be to seek therapy as the cause is likely psychological, but I recognise that this is difficult in Singapore.