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I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

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Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#241

Post by qdog »

kahrkunne wrote: post #213
Johnny555 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my elderly father was becoming careless with his money and giving it away to anyone he perceived to be in "need" ($1,000 or $10,000 at a time), we managed to convince him to give my brother power of attorney - ostensibly to make health care decisions, but in reality, the family moved his funds to a new account that dad didn't know about. This was likely illegal as it was done without his knowledge, but it proved…

This makes you more of a thief than the scammers, not only taking more money but also abusing the trust of your own father. Shame on you.

Probably not illegal, you are required to act "in the best interests" of the person. From experience with another family member who gave an outsider POA, even malicious POA actions are very difficult to attempt to prosecute.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#242

Post by qdog »

michael_h wrote: post #53

My mother in law is currently $150,000+ deep on a Facebook romance scam. I believe she's about to send him another $200k or so when her house is sold. Instead of living out her retirement in relative comfort, she will be scraping by on social security. Adult services can't help, because moonshot-level stupidity is not a mental disorder. She can't live with us, as she can no longer be trusted. She can't live on her ow…

I had a family member lose upwards of $300k before one of her financial agents contacted us. It was a "security system installation and monitoring" guy. Had done it to many people, apparently being the security alarm guy gets a lot of older people to trust you. Luckily we saved some funds and a pension to take care of her, but it was incredibly maddening. It was after another person passed who had kept tabs on her business, as soon as he passed the scam artist started siphoning money.

In my case she still trusted me and we got control as she developed dementia, but it took some time and money. If there is anyone else she likes or trusts more than normal, that might be the only person who csn get through.

I'm sorry you have to go through this, good luck.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#243

Post by [deleted] »

michael_h wrote: post #53

My mother in law is currently $150,000+ deep on a Facebook romance scam. I believe she's about to send him another $200k or so when her house is sold. Instead of living out her retirement in relative comfort, she will be scraping by on social security. Adult services can't help, because moonshot-level stupidity is not a mental disorder. She can't live with us, as she can no longer be trusted. She can't live on her ow…

[deleted]

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#244

Post by stevenh »

michael_h wrote: post #182
jayess wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, just log in to her facebook and block the dude... better yet, change her email address for the account and then the password so she can't reset her password.

Done, done, and done. That was the first thing we did. Facebook was only the initial mode of communication - now they communicate by text, which I can't control.

Assuming her phone is configured to cloak the number in favor of the name, maybe you could grab her phone when she's asleep and swap the phone number for the scammer's contact with the number of your brand new burner phone from which you will impersonate the scammer from now on.

You could also record a video on your own phone as you swipe down through the scammer's texts as a crude way to archive them to study later so you get the impersonation right.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#245

Post by goolulusaurs »

logicallee wrote: post #206
yesbabyyes wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, thanks. Perhaps I might, not right now though. I'm not very worried about the association, these things aren't that secret. I can tell you though that there is some more disturbing things going on in Ghana, with what they call Sakawa Boys. Sakawa is the name for online scams. Sakawa Boys are more into carding/skimming, but there is a way darker side to Sakawa which I don't think is happening with the 419ers. The…

read this. also fascinating. yes, write it up if you find a good medium (hint hint) to publish it on. question: you write in one point here "I'm interested in magic myself." You can't say that to this crowd if you said it I would stop reading your article for credibility reasons. So if you believe that any kind of magic or spells exist (that aren't tricks), then you should separate out this belief from your report, b…

Magic is real. Look anywhere in the world outside of modern urban areas and you will find people who have experienced it first hand. It is true that every culture in the world has different gods and spirits, but they all have some conceptions of magic and a spirit realm. The existence and character of this phenomenon has been discovered and independently rediscovered many times throughout and preceding recorded history, but because of the conditions of their environment and because of their philosophical preconceptions western technocrats deny it. Magic is an antifragile phenomenon; it lives in and feeds upon chaos. It can't be tested in a controlled environment anymore than you can study primate mating habits in an environment devoid of oxygen. But in real life it works, and the only truly empirical thing to do is to try it for yourself, in the context of your own life, and see how real it can be.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#246

Post by kahrkunne »

Johnny555 wrote: post #221
kahrkunne wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I express empathy to the guy who ("probably") illegally stole his elderly father's money? If you can't get it done legally (by getting the person declared mentally unfit) then it's nothing more than theft. Deciding on your own that a person, your father none the less, shouldn't be allowed to control their own money, is indefensible. If you think this is so, there's well-defined legal procedures to do this.…

At the time, his doctor and attorney said that while his behavior may have been out of character, it was not egregious enough to get a court order declaring him mentally incompetent. One of those professionals recommended (completely off the record and in literally whispered voice) the route that we followed.

So he was not mentally incompetent, and you illegally took all his money, and you still think this is defensible?

I'll never understand you people, thinking you have the right to touch other's property and decide their lives, because you think you know better than them. (and then collectively downvoting me to hell because I dare to defend the right to private property of mentally competent people and condemning theft)

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#247

Post by yomly »

kahrkunne wrote: post #246
Johnny555 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time, his doctor and attorney said that while his behavior may have been out of character, it was not egregious enough to get a court order declaring him mentally incompetent. One of those professionals recommended (completely off the record and in literally whispered voice) the route that we followed.

So he was not mentally incompetent, and you illegally took all his money, and you still think this is defensible? I'll never understand you people, thinking you have the right to touch other's property and decide their lives, because you think you know better than them. (and then collectively downvoting me to hell because I dare to defend the right to private property of mentally competent people and condemning theft…

It's hard to know the full truth from a truncated post on the internet with limited other context, but it's advisable to take it as it is and not project so much of your own opinion on it.

It's impossible to know the trust-dynamics in this family.

When I was a young child, my mother would regularly take money which was given to me as gifts from relatives and I would never see it again. I have full faith that whatever she did with the money was spent in more productive ways than I ever could, despite that being theft by your interpretation.

Going up this thread, the topic is that at some point the parent-child dynamic fully-reverses. Now the parent is less responsible than the child and the child may or may not need to exercise some authority in the parent's best interest.

The definitions of when this dynamic should reverse, of what "best interest" is, of what "responsible" means are all subjective but much of our world is. I personally put faith in my ability to judge people, and therefore by extension, put faith in my friends and family to generally help and intervene in my best interests when the time is necessary - I would prefer this every time over having some legal intervention and hope that it never has to come to this in my own case.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#248

Post by qb45 »

logicallee wrote: post #234
yesbabyyes wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you mean, I've been frequenting HN for years so I know the crowd. Regarding magic, to me it's not so much about whether magic exists but what it is. Sure, it's trickery, originally I guess it is what we would call technology, only wider, technology and psychology perhaps. It's about making things come to happen. I guess I could put it this way, Clarke's quote ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indis…

from what you've just stated it's fine. What I meant is that there are people who believe you could levitate objects with your mind (like in the xmen comic books) and since you're writing about things that are already really, really outlandish it's SUPER-important not to fall into a comic-book style of narration!! :) If you thought you (or anyone) could actually levitate objects with your mind (and no technology) the…

> Just be clear that what you've shared with us just now already sounds like a comic book!! :) I mean, you've literally written that there are people who ask people to kill someone and get body parts, as part of voodoo. There are people walking around naked after being given drugs.

OP's stuff is business as usual, really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_cannibali...

You have it all - magic, satanism, naked guys eating people on the street, etc.

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#249

Post by piaste »

kahrkunne wrote: post #246
Johnny555 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time, his doctor and attorney said that while his behavior may have been out of character, it was not egregious enough to get a court order declaring him mentally incompetent. One of those professionals recommended (completely off the record and in literally whispered voice) the route that we followed.

So he was not mentally incompetent, and you illegally took all his money, and you still think this is defensible? I'll never understand you people, thinking you have the right to touch other's property and decide their lives, because you think you know better than them. (and then collectively downvoting me to hell because I dare to defend the right to private property of mentally competent people and condemning theft…

Do you believe that every illegal act is automatically indefensible?

Re: I went to Nigeria to meet a man who scammed me

#250

Post by [deleted] »

qb45 wrote: post #194
exolymph wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, prostitution is physically sexual. So it's more like someone who gets addicted to camgirls. However those situations are mutually honest transactions. In this case she's being deceived and lacks the strength of character or mental stability to fully realize that or cope with it. I do agree that she's probably starved for affection. Frankly, an escort or camgirl habit could be cheaper.

> I do agree that she's probably starved for affection. This. And I suspect she's paying for the appearance of being treated seriously and having her emotions treated seriously, which OP clearly fails to deliver by arguing that she's wrong. I don't have many constructive ideas what to do, but don't repeat things that have never worked in the past and pay attention to her needs, not yours, might be a good starting poi…

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