Romance scammer cons grandma into giving away $70K, pawning home. Family attempts to intervene; she 'hexes' them. AITA? UPDATED 2X
"My MIL has already given 50k to a romance scam, tried to give another 178k recently. Can an intervention help?"
Mother-in-law lives in Laos a developing country in Asia, I was born there too, but left when I was 10 months. MIL had fallen victim to romance scams in the past, but "only" losing maybe 2-5k USD. We knew she had in the past 6 months fallen for another romance scam, but didn't think it was "serious".
My wife has in the past 4 years completely renovated her mother's house, new backyard, new additions to the house, even left her still relatively new car for her mother. My wife also sends her mom about $700 USD a month for expenses, the same amount she sends to her father, and he says it's more than enough. MIL is not cash rich, but has access to properties.
We would then hear things like how MIL is very frugal, lives like a destitute person. MIL would constantly be asking my wife for advances in her allowance. Then we would hear from others that MIL told people that we have never sent her any money at all not even $1; in an attempt to convince that person to lend her money.
Then we start getting calls from village elders and family members that MIL is trying to pawn properties for loans, some successfully. She has no intentions of paying these loans, for the papers we could get, they take the property after 6 months of backed payments.
MIL thinks she will be living in the US by the time the loans are due, and her great lover will pay off the loans. She's been able to pawn things that aren't even in her name.
She has pawned in the past month, Jewelry 10k, 4 acre plot 12k (real value 50k), scooters, 1K, rental advance from a business property she owns 1/6 of 20k, my wife's car 3k (real value 15k). The roughly 50k she received from the loans, she's already given away to the scammers.
She has also attempted to sell, but were stopped by officials, another 4 acre plot 18k (real value 100k), her own house in the capital, right in the central business district 100k (real value 500k), her 1/6 plot for family business property 50k (real value 250k).
My wife's family is not used to confrontations, I think it's actually a cultural thing. So despite everyone knowing what needs to be done, no one is leading. So I guess I am. In 3 weeks, we will be landing in Laos.
I will lead an intervention, around 10 people, victim impact statements, etc. I got my sister-in-law, and MIL ex husband to talk to the officials to make sure the second farm plot, own house and family business can not be sold, as the village officials have to sign off on it.
We will pay off the car loan, and then sell the car. We can not get back the plot of land, without MIL helping, as she has the loan papers, and these loan people are shysters, so unless MIL is convince she has been scammed, that plot is gone. If MIL comes to her senses, we will use the car money, and put in our money funds to buy back the land.
We stopped sending MIL money last month, we pay her utility bills directly, and pay sister-in-law to buy groceries to put in her fridge. Issue with the house she's trying to sell is...2 of her daughters, and quite often 1 or 2 grandkids also live here. Losing the house will not just affect the MIL.
If you've read this far, holy...thank you. I need help with this intervention, I've never even done one before and need some guidance. We plan on taking her smart phone and replacing with one of those brick Nokias.
I am expecting the intervention to last 5-6 hours, also thinking of not letting her leave the house even for days or weeks until she gets it. IF she doesn't wake up and realize what's happening and pawns the house she lives in, we will not help.
I will not put up 130k for this crazy lady and risk my own family's financial future. So this intervention, as serious as it may get, has to work or we will be cutting MIL completely from our life.
I guess what I am asking is...for those who have successfully got then family members to realize they were scammed...what did it? How were you successful? How was the process like for someone this deep in?
Edit: My wife just approached me with a solution that her sister looked into. I think we're going to check MIL into an mental health addiction clinic, a hospital referred us to them. We have spoken with police who will take her to the clinic. Curious what people here think of this solution.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Unfortunately, it usually takes them running out of money. They want to believe what they are being told is true so bad, convincing them otherwise is almost impossible. On YouTube there's a channel called catfished. Maybe you can contact them and have them show that it's a scam.
Fugglesmcgee (OP)
Yes, sad as it is...if this intervention doesn't work, we're out, my wife agrees. She's even sold my wife's jewelry and replaced them with fakes. Wife feels constantly betrayed.
Then they start on other peoples money, it never stops. The best you can do is make sure she can only get at her own money.
One month later, the OP returned with an update.
I never thought there'd be a part 2, because I didn't think there would be a point - but here goes. So the first few days we arrive in Laos, my mother-in-law is nowhere to be seen. On day 3 we get one of her friends to ask her to meet up casually.
She says she can't, she's in another city for a funeral of her friend. We then figure she's hiding out in her country farm house an hour away. So now it's harder to get a lot of people in my planned intervention. Still, 6 people pack a van. Her brothers, her daughters (including my wife), and me. We head out.
We park and one of her daughters approaches the farm house. She calls out her mom, and her mom answers and tells us to go away. We surround the farm house and everything is locked. We keep telling her that we just want to talk, but will break down the doors if she doesn't unlock the doors. MIL refuses to answer.
There are 2 doors inside, one is "boarded" up and impossible to get through, the other we use a crowbar to wedge over the door. We get through the lock, but this woman has also used coat hangers wrapped around the door knob attached to something to keep us out. So now we spend 10 minutes getting through that.
We go through the house, and she's locked in the bedroom. So now we start to crowbar this door. As we do so, she's screaming that we're coming to kill her...great. We get in, and she's an absolute mess, hair all over the place, just general unkempt.
Her older brother tries to talk to her, really really calm. Like good guy, being nice - calm. He gets a punch from her. She's also a heavy set women, probably hurt a little, even if she's elderly.
So I sit down, and I totally think I got this. Right? I've seen some screenshots of her phone that people have managed to take and was able to piece the possible story. So I lay it out to her, common enough romance scam. Scammer sends her something, get stuck at customs, she sends money, but it's still stuck.
Then story escalates to scammer coming to visit her, then is arrested and needs bail. Now it's her fault, and she needs to send money to bail him out. It's okay though, when he's out, he will pay whatever cost she incurred, and they'll fly away to another country and live happily ever after.
I spend 3 hours over logic and reason, like why can't this guy call him embassy if he's stuck? She doesn't say a word, but does look at me when I talk. Finally at hour 5, as everyone is tired and giving up. I give her a hug, and she absolutely breaks. She starts crying, telling us she believes us. Everyone hugs each other, which does not happen in this country. People are crying. I am like "yeah I got this."
She wants to spend another night at the farm though, I get that, she's lost someone. This lover that no longer exist and who never loved her. Needs to grieve. I ask for her phone, but she doesn't want to give it that night, she will give it tomorrow - but promises to not contact the scammers.
Everyone leaves in good spirits. People seem happy and dinner is had. Next day, mother-in-law returns. I see her for maybe 5 minutes, everyone seems good. I decide to go the route of starting on the family recover part, then a few days later go for the financial part.
We are staying in a hotel, not with my MIL. So next day, small family dinner is had, people are happy to have their mother back. Two days later, bigger family dinner, MIL seems happy, she agrees to talk about the financial part the next day. This whole time, I did not get that phone back from her, I was so focused on getting the family part back. Mistake.
At the table sit myself, MIL and her daughters. I start with a simple "You do still believe us and not this scammer Kevin right?" She replies with "I don't know what you're talking about. There was never a Kevin."
So yep, she's still talking to the scammer. Now everyone is pissed. One of her daughter's throws photocopied texts conversations between her and the scammer while yelling at her mom. "Oh yes, that Kevin."
I can't believe this nonsense is happening. I try to keep everyone calm, but everyone is upset. What's crazy is that she seems to realize it's a scam, but at the same time still believes the scammer.
We ask for property titles, so she can't pawn or sell things and we can recover some things but she only gives us partial actual documents, or photocopies. Everyone is more pissed. She keeps denying having any loan papers, that the loan sharks kept them all. We don't believe it.
She takes out her phone and starts to go through it to find one of her loan contacts. My wife decides this is it, and lunges at her mother for the phone. My wife may be slim, but she's active at the gym; and I of course I naturally have to go at it too. So now 3 people wrestling over the phone, which we do manage to take. My Wife quickly goes over conversations from the scammer and loan sharks.
My wife reads aloud the messages, and confirms that it was the same scam story that we thought. At this point, everyone seems calm. Mother in law seems resigned to the fact that we now have her phone and going through it.
The rest of the family is bewildered at how obviously fake the lies and images that the scammer sent to her were though, but no one is yelling at her. The scammer is apparently an American, head of medicine at some Boston hospital. Of course. Why wouldn't a 40 something head of medicine want my elderly nearly obese MIL.
At one point, my wife sees that my MIL asks the scammer why he didn't go to the embassy for help, scammer said that there were no embassy from his county where he was being held. We question the MIL, but she's not really talking much, but finally says he's in Germany.
Everyone is still calm though. I show my MIL that there is an US embassy in Germany, a half dozen consulates, dozens of offices. She replied that she's going to have to let Kevin know about these options that he didn't about.
She still believes this dude. I show her that the plane tickets they sent to show he had a jetset life didn't exist. The images were so ridiculously fake that anyone could google and see why. A non-stop ticket from Kazakhstan to Tennessee on UA 134...everyone is still trying to convince her and calm though.
My wife scrolls to the loan sharks. Financially, we are mostly where we think we are. Except she has managed to pawn the country farmhouse. We didn't think she could because her ex-husband is on the title, and he did not agree to that.
People are furious, and I am tired of holding them back. They verbally lay it on her. We put down on paper what the debt is, and I don't think she flinched. We did when we totalled it. 70k for properties and items worth 350k.
We try for 2 hours to talk sense into her, but she's still fully committed to believing the scammers. There is just one property left not pawned. The one in the we're currently in, the one that only has her name, but is actually her ex husband's childhood house.
Everyone leaves frustrated, my wife and I tell her that she would never see us again. She asks for her phone back, our reply wasn't very nice. My wife worries her mother is going to commit suicide, she doesn't.
Next day, we meet up with the father-in-law, whom I always thought was a stand up guy. Everyone thought he would be upset, but he was just disappointed. He goes on to explain that he removed his name from the house title in the capital because he didn't want his children or grandchildren to think he would try to kick them out in any way, as his ex-wife had repeated said it was something he would do.
He was in tears, and said he just wanted good things for his family. We agree to meet up again the next day to start a plan to get the police to arrest MIL for selling the farm property that FIL did have his name on the title.
Wife goes through the phone and we get an even clearer picture. Turns out those loan shysters weren't nearly actually as bad as we thought, even the one that accepted a property as collateral knowing the FIL wasn't involved.
There were 2 main loaners, each loan to them started typical enough for the 2 properties, but then MIL started asking to see if they would take a loan for the house in the capital. Both said no, stated that they didn't want any of the properties, they just wanted the interest from the loans.
They started questioning if she was being scammed, telling her to talk to her family. She kepted telling them she was fine. They kept insisting she gets her family invovled, she said her family was why she didn't have anything and needed the loans.
We called the loan people, they seem amicable, and actually concerned for MIL. One only wanted the principle back, the other seem willing to accept the principle and a month's interest instead of everything's that's accrued. My wife asks me if I remember the jewelry gifts we got for our wedding, I replied that I didn't until she mentioned it now. "Good, then you won't miss them."
Next day, my wife plans to pay the loan to get her car back. There's already a buyer. The sale of the car, and the jewelry is enough to cover not everything, but at least the two farm properties. I guess I shouldn't be annoyed at losing the jewelry, definitely annoyed at MIL though.
Sure enough, mid day, we get a text message from the scammer on my MIL's phone, which we have, asking why he's getting texts from another number claiming to be my MIL, and that is the new number to call? We throw a few curveballs at the scammer, but yep. MIL had a backup phone, which explains why she wasn't wrestling us back for the phone, and is re-talking to the scammers. Yay.
2 hours after this, my sister in law puts her phone up to show me and my wife a live scene from the security cameras at the house. So alot of people in this country still believes in animalism and spirits etc. Conversations goes like this.
SIL - "She's opening up all the windows in the house."
Wife - "That nasty b-word."
"Yep, she's got them all opened. She's got some incense now. She's lighting them outside the house and waving them."
"Oh eff her, I am so out of her life. What kind of mother does that?"
Me, scratching my head - "What's going on?"
"She just wished all the evil in the world to come to you and your wife."
"Oh Wonderful."
Thank you for reading my rant. Well we're here for another week, lets see what craziness happens now. Hoping my MIL does get arrested, I think it's likely but maybe not before we leave. If you guys actually read this all the way through, and the next part is interesting, I'll put it up.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s update:
The picture you paint is one of a person who is not mentally well.
She needs medical intervention.
Fugglesmcgee (OP)
That is the picture we get as well. I have suggested this to the family before. They declined it, seems a good idea to suggest it again.
Edit. NM, I recall now why they declined. Mental health treatment is none existent here. The one place that would take her is for drug rehab, and it's pretty grim.
I would not bail her out of her loans with your money, she'll just do it again with the same scammer or a different scammer. I would move on with your life and stay out of hers.
A month and a half later, the OP returned with another update.
This update isn't as exciting as the 2nd update where we were breaking down doors with crowbars, and my MIL putting a hex on us, but that's probably a good thing. My mother-in-law has fallen victim to a romance scam. She lives in Laos, a developing country in South East Asia. Recently, we travelled there and hoped that we could convince her it was a scam. We couldn't.
Although she does not have a lot of money, she has owns 2 farm plots, a house in the capital, and a lot of small items such as scooters, jewelry etc. My MIL believes that her lover is stuck in a jail in Germany and needs her help, once he is out, he will pay off all her debts and she will live a life of luxury.
I pushed getting her arrested, but apparently in Laos it's not that simple. You have to go to the village elder, they have to get the village police involved, and then an actual arrest can be made. I am not sure if it really was this complicated, or if the family just didn't have the appetite for it.
Of all the things she had pawned, we were interested in resolving 4 items that were pawned or suspected to be. My wife's car, 2 farm plots and the house in the capital. We paid 3k to get the car back, which included the loan and interest. We then sold the car. My wife also sold the wedding jewelry we received many years ago.
This together with the proceeds of the car was enough for us to pay back the loan and interest for the 2 farm plots. The papers were all signed in front of village officials. We had no idea where the deed to the house in the capital was, turns out of the loan people had the deed all along.
My MIL was so desperate for money that she offered to take 5k for a house worth 500k USD. The loaner declined, but held onto the deed, which was given back to us. The laws in Laos don't make any sense to me, and I am not sure how we're able to do the things we did after:
The first farm plot is 6 acres, and co-owned by MIL and ex-husband. MIL managed to pawn the property without her ex-husband knowing. So now we are going by the official judgement from their divorce.
1.5 acres will be given to MIL, but title will be given to one of her daughters to hold. The second farm plot is 5 acres, it was 100% in MIL's name, but was paid for by my wife years ago. Title will now be transferred to my wife.
As for the house in the capital, it 100% in my MIL's name even though it was my FIL's childhood home. This was because she had repeatedly accused him of in the future selling the house and leaving the grandkids with no place to go, funny how it was actually the opposite. We're working on putting FIL back on the title, while one of my wife's sister holds onto the title.
My wife used to give her mother a $500-600 monthly stipend, but stopped a few months ago. She has told her sisters that she will still help pay for utilities and putting groceries in her mother's fridge (wife's niece and nephews also use the house).
We have to pay utilities directly now, as the lights were just turned off recently because MIL didn't pay utilities for 4 months. However, we have cut off all contact with MIL, she won't see our son again either, and she has numerous photos of him in her house.
We knew she had promised the scammers to get him money in April, so we tried to get ahead of that. She travelled to Thailand to ask some relatives for money, but we told them ahead of time not to give any money.
In the end, she "begged" them for bags of rice to take home, which they gave. She also recently went to visit her son to ask him for money, he wasn't home, so she asked for $5 from her daughter-in-law's mother.
She's going to several friends, asking for financial help, telling them that her kids abandoned her. So now we have to call those people and tell them that MIL has been scammed, but we still put food in the fridge.
MIL still believes the scammers, she wants to desperately believe she did not give the scammers our final tally of 70k, she really wants to believe her lover is real. She has nothing left to pawn now since we have all the documents. I can only hope that within 6 months the scammers will stop talking to her once they realize she has nothing left and maybe she will come to her senses.
It's been exhausting, but I am glad we were able to get all 3 property titles back so at least MIL and niece and nephews don't end on the street. I was born in Laos too, but left when I wasn't even 1 years old, but I get the culture.
We had planned a 5 week trip, but spent almost 4 weeks cleaning up this scam mess. The whole point of the trip prior to realizing my MIL was being scammed was to do a "baby blessing" ceremony, to be attended by 100s of people, it's a very wholesome positive event - something my wife has been looking forward to for a year; we didn't do it since there was so much bad energy.
It wasn't until we flew to Bangkok for a few days that we felt we were on vacation. My wife used to fly back to Laos once a year, sometimes twice - she's made it very clear she won't be going back for a while.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s second update:
I'm glad that it sounds like you'll be largely able to keep the most valuable properties, though at some cost to yourself. I guess that it was good your mother-in-law was so desperate to get money fast that she pawned off the properties instead of selling them. Hopefully you'll be able to get all of them secured away from her so she can't send scammers even more money.
The best part of the story is the loan sharks turning out to not be loan sharks at all and actually concerned for the MIL.
Sadly, I can relate. With my mother it was Keanu Reeves on Instagram. She gave him all her Social Security and banking info and hid it from us for months before we found out the bank and the IRS were investigating her for money laundering. He got roughly 10k from a 72 yo woman on disability.
We control her finances now, but she's still in denial. Up until a couple months ago she was still talking to him, but now he's ghosted her since she can't give him any more money. It's so frustrating and enraging to have to deal with things like this.