Their parents give all their money to scammers. Children cannot stop them

Impersonator Bliss often claimed she was hospitalized for bad menstrual periods and begged Alfred Mancinelli to send money so the hospital could start treating her. “Tell me how much you got left baby,” the impostor said in the chat.

Although the fraudsters refused to communicate with Alfred Mancinelli via audio or video, they occasionally got through the screen, sending him trinkets in the mail and even delivering pizzas for his birthday.

Chris Mancinelli enlisted the help of an aged care manager and a therapist, and he cleaned up his father’s Google account (which was connected to two devices with Nigerian IP addresses). He created a trust and developed a financial plan to help his father manage his expenses.

When that didn’t go far enough, he went nuclear: He took his father’s last $100,000 and put it into another account.

Since Alfred Mancinelli could not send money to the supposedly ill Bliss, he became angry. He then sued his son in February 2023. He wanted his money back, plus interest and court costs.

At that point, Chris Mancinelli asked himself, “Why am I in federal court trying to help my father? Why don’t I just stop it at zero?”

A month after he returned the money, it was gone.

“If he hadn’t passed, he would have continued,” said Mancinelli, who found documents indicating his father may have been preparing to sell his home. His father also took out personal loans, using his car and TV as collateral.

The scammers knew so much about Alfred Mancinelli that they began targeting his family as well: Chris Mancinelli, he said, received threats, but the scammers also sent his youngest granddaughter pictures of Alfred, demanding gift cards.

“All the girls knew their grandfather had been scammed,” added Chris Mancinelli, “so they were already on alert for suspicious activity.”

Although Alfred Mancinelli passed cognitive tests, he became a little more withdrawn, his son said. There were also minor road accidents that he did not want to talk about.

“It’s really hard for us to accept that there wasn’t some sort of invisible mental breakdown,” Chris Mancinelli said, “because the behavior seemed so out of character for the person we knew growing up.”

Older people may also be more susceptible to the mind games that scammers are so adept at — exploiting fear, creating a sense of urgency, or even stirring up excitement over the prospect of a new romance or investment opportunity.

Researchers from the Stanford Longevity Center, the FINRA Investor Education Foundation and the AARP Fraud Watch Network found that the goal is to get victims into a state of heightened emotion where they no longer think rationally and respond to these appeals.

“They’re looking for the victim’s emotional Achilles heel,” said Doug Schadel, managing director of Fraud Prevention Strategies, a Seattle-based consulting firm and former state director of AARP in Washington.

Back in March, Nick J., a 38-year-old software engineer from New York, traveled to San Jose, California, to see his father for his 80th birthday. During his visit, he witnessed his father’s deep involvement in an investment scheme offered through a woman who claimed to be from South Korea. His father woke up early one morning, focused on live chats and charts tracking the spot gold market. The next day, Nick found out that the trading platform his father used was a scam.

“Everything was in motion, which gave him the idea that he was making deals,” Nick said. “He stayed awake day and night because he was talking to people in Asia.”

His father was convinced that his account had grown to $5 million. But the next day he could not withdraw any part of his money. (To protect his father’s identity, The New York Times is using only Nick’s first name.)

In the end, his father transferred almost all of his savings, as well as part of the borrowed money – about 1 million dollars.

That included $250,000 from a home equity line of credit, which his wife was shocked to discover while casually checking her bank accounts on her phone. It was taken about a week before Nick’s visit.

“What’s going on?” she recalled asking her husband. “And then he started talking about this gold. I went completely crazy.”

Nick’s 74-year-old mother was also furious that Bank of America didn’t notify her before the entire line, which had been dormant for a long time, was immediately drained.

William Halldin, a spokesman for the bank, said these lines of credit work like any other joint account, meaning any authorized user can make transactions without the permission of the other account holder.

Nick’s mother approached the bank, but it rejected her request for a refund. She also filed a complaint with the Consumer Protection Bureau.

The scheme began with a WhatsApp message in 2023 from Aina, a woman who claimed to be from South Korea. After Nick’s father became romantically involved with her, Aina introduced him to another woman, Miv, who claimed to be her friend and investment advisor in Hong Kong.

Aina shared many details of her life – an ex-husband who lost their money, a young son who needs to be supported. She later explained her connection to the gold market.

Nick’s father was led to believe that he was investing in an account opened by Miv. Miv also claimed that she was in contact with a well-known research analyst at Bank of America who was advising on 10% real-time commissions that were to be paid out of new money rather than the profits that Nick’s father allegedly recorded.

(A Bank of America representative said the research analysts do not serve individual investors.)

By the end of March, Nick’s father believed his investment had grown to $5 million, and was advised to reinvest most of it, which of course he inevitably lost.

“I made every trade myself,” his father said in an interview. – I lost everything.

A friend in the FBI told Nick’s father to stop sending Aina and her adviser money, which he did. But there is not much left until then. He still maintains that the woman and their relationship were real.

His wife said she believes he clung to the idea that the money could be returned because he wanted it to be – even needed it to be. “He gave himself hope.”

His relationship with Nick and his other son remains fractured.

Chris Mancinelli never got a chance to reconcile with his father, Alfred, who died after he failed to recover from neck surgery he needed following a fall.

“He lost all his money, his family relationships, and he was constantly stressed about it, trying to get more and more money for them,” Mancinelli said. “I loved him. I wanted a close relationship with him, but it ruined it.”

This article was originally published in The New York Times.