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Sounds awful doesn’t it?
The Article in the WSJ was so painful to read but it led me to the awareness of how to protect myself and those I love.
in the article the problem was the spouse trusted the other spouse who was starting the long road of dementia. How do you protect your financial well being from something like that?
HumbleDollar readers, how do you protect yourselves? I need your wisdom.
We do have some history of dementia in our family tree.
My plan is to write out clear financial plans, instructions, and information in a letter. All three of our children will receive a copy of it, to be opened if one of us passes away and the other begins signs of dementia.
As always, I appreciate this HD article question and I look forward to responses that may give me a better plan or at the least confirm the plan I have.
Admittedly, it is a plan that I haven’t put in place. A plan not put in place…. Is not a plan
In the mid-2000s I engaged one of these scammers in a conversation agreeing to continue only if we could meet in person. The scammer agreed and I gave him an address in Littleton, Colorado. The scammer asked what was the building at that address. I told him it was the FCI Littleton location. FCI = Federal Correctional Institution.
Never heard from the scammer again.
Nick, thanks for posting this. When my wife’s aunt, and later her mother, developed dementia, we got involved in helping them in organizing and managing their finances. I was very worried about them being targets of scammers, but also legitimate organizations that tried to take advantage of their situation. Her aunt was bombarded with donation requests from so many different charities it was hard to deal with the shear amount. We also found a cash account with a nationwide bank’s wealth management division. The account had about $20K, extremely low interest, and $100 per month service fee. She was losing about $1,200 per year. We closed that account quite quickly. My wife’s aunt had been a very competent money manager and investor, mainly in her company’s stock. The scariest part was how quickly her cognitive decline went, with no obvious cause.
Kari’s statement below about humility is so true. The number of opportunities to be scammed keeps growing, and we all spend more of our time online. Not too long ago I spoke with a VP of one of the country’s largest banks. He was head of cyber security for their credit card division. The amount of cyber attacks they dealt with was staggering.
Rick, reminds me of an elderly client of mine. He had at least 50 receipts for small donations to legit charities. Once they get your name…..
Some great points made to help protect oneself from scams. I also listened to the 8 part podcast Scam Inc and was amazed at the stories. We all think we could never be that gullible, myself included. However a powerful takeaway is that awareness isn’t just about knowledge—it’s also about humility. When we acknowledge that anyone can be scammed, we stay more vigilant and less embarrassed to double-check, ask questions, or say no.
Recently my parents got caught up in a scam when they wanted to cancel their Amazon Prime membership. They are not comfortable doing this electronically so they found a phone number they believed was Amazon to initiate the request. Since they initiated the call they were not thinking about scams when they were told they had some unknown charges on the account and this person could help them out with that. My folks gave them a good deal of personal information before they started to suspect. Fortunately they caught it before they were out cash, but it has been a huge headache changing account information and getting new bank cards etc.
This happened to me when I googled customer service phone number for Frontier Airlines. I was buying a ticket late at night to attend a funeral. I couldn’t find out on their website how to book a ticket with just a carry on as I was flying by myself and didn’t care about reserving a particular seat. After I gave the person on the phone my credit card number they sent an email saying I would receive the ticket within 24-48 hours. After I hung up and looked at the email I had this sinking feeling. I Googled the company name when it didn’t say Frontier and saw numerous warnings about dealing with the company. I immediately called the credit card company.
BTW Frontier does not have a customer service number for those who are not “members” of their miles program until I think it is the day before the flight. Will never fly with them again because of that. If a company doesn’t want to talk to their customers, I won’t do business with them again.
There have been lots of articles about this over the past couple of years. We dont answer our phone unless it is a known contact, we try to screen online contacts and we have an advisor who closely monitors our accounts. Here is an answer from Perplexity AI: How to Protect Yourself from “Pig Butchering” ScamsPig butchering scams are a type of sophisticated investment fraud that often blends romantic or friendly overtures with fake investment opportunities, especially involving cryptocurrencies. Scammers typically build trust and manipulate victims over weeks or months before defrauding them of large sums. Here are key strategies to defend against these scams:
Recognize the Warning Signs
Best Practices for Protection
What to Do if Targeted
By practicing vigilance, skepticism, and strong digital habits, you can significantly reduce your risk of falling victim to pig butchering scams
I do think banks are caught between a rock and a hard place, able to do only so much against these scams. Widespread social education and family involvement, including open communication about finances, seem the best way to combat this fraud. There’s no easy solution, but breaking the victim”buy-in” is probably the area to focus on. My daughter got stung in one of these push scams, not a massive amount I admit. Usual rubbish, send the money and it’ll be doubled in no time. I admit I wasn’t very sympathetic with a tech savvy, apparently world wise 26 year old.
The mentioned WSJ article offers a glimpse – narrow but piercing – into the scale of what’s unfolding. For a broader view, I have followed “Scam Inc”, a nine-part podcast by the Economist. It traces how a vast, global underground economy – powered by online fraud, human trafficking, and political corruption – is quietly rivaling the drug trade and reshaping entire cities, industries, and lives. It is estimated that $500 billion a year flowed into these scams from victims worldwide.
Scam industries don’t just steal – they also launder illicit funds, exploit and abduct workers, move money through human mules, bribe any vulnerable officials to build covert economic zones. This is a global operation, constantly adapting and enhanced by AI technologies.
Singapore, China have been fighting back. The US Federal agencies were mobilizing to cope (unknown status at present). Near me, the Santa Clara County Deputy DA Erin West led a task force since 2016, and expanded in 2024 in partnership with Microsoft, Meta, LinkedIn to educate, seize and disrupt such operations with very limited success.
Scams take advantage of universal human frailties—greed, lust, trust, hope, and fear. For millenias, religion of all faiths have tried to innoculate us for our protection, with some historical side effects like intolerance, exclusion, and even manipulation in the name of faith. The modern society needs a modern approach by learning from the past, adding a layer of digital architecture of our choice to build a cohesive ethical communities that are resilient to this social virus called Scams.”
I also wanted to mention that Michelle Singletary did a whole series of articles in the Washington Post on this topic earlier in the year. Chris
I used to love reading Michele Singletary’s columns but didn’t know where she was being published. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a way for non-subscribers to access WP articles.
We are going through some of this with Spouse’s mom. Here is what Spouse has done so far:
I hope some of this will help. Would like to hear any other tips people have. Thanks for asking this, Nick. Chris
I like the air tag idea for Mom’s car and I’m going to share this with Spouse. Spouse has “find my” turned on Spouses 90 year old Mothers iphone (with mothers consent) and routinely checks where she’s at if she’s out of the house on non-routine outings. Changed Mothers computer account on desktop to “user” to help prevent Mom from accidentally installing malware software unknowingly when online. Gene
This is tough to read. I have a hard time putting the monitoring and blame on the banks though.
They are caught in the middle unless there is clear fiduciary protection of some kind. What if they decide to stop a legitimate transaction and the customer suffers a loss?
Seems to me the first line of protection for any age is family and perhaps health care providers. However, sometimes people are just foolish and greedy. And when there is a couple, my opinion has always been money is ours, not his and hers and all knowledge about the money is shared.
I also resent writing like this in the article:
“Victims are often elderly or otherwise vulnerable” I find the general assumption about elderly offensive. Sure it happens, but also to younger ages.
“And when there is a couple, my opinion has always been money is ours, not his and hers and all knowledge about the money is shared.”
When one spouse is compromised by dementia, this no longer works. What happens when the demented spouse willingly wants to provide an obvious scammer complete and unfettered access to the couple’s bank and retirement accounts? When the compromised individual refuses to to cooperate, or sign over control, it’s tough for family to stop it, and even law enforcement is largely prevented from intervening. I’ve seen this up close and personal, and it’s a painful mess to try and sort out.
As for strategies to deal with this, there aren’t any quick fixes or easy answers. But thinking long-term, it is another potential advantage of a 401(k) over an IRA; most 401(k) plans require both spouses to sign off on distributions, whereas one spouse has no legal right to the other spouse’s IRA. I know it sounds drastic, but once you’ve seen this happen up close you think about these things a lot more carefully–or at least you should.
And it makes me cringe all the more when I see people so anxious to roll over their 401(k) to an IRA without even considering this, because their financial advisor pushed them to, or they thought they would save “big money” on a Roth conversion or whatever. There could be a lot more at stake here than trying to save a few bucks in taxes, and yet most of the time this aspect isn’t even mentioned.
wtfwjtd – that’s an interesting observation about 401(k) vs IRA access. In my case, I do have a financial advisor, and we communicate by email, text, phone, or face-to-face routinely. They know my plans and the few times I’ve requested anything out of the ordinary, I’ve let them know well ahead of time. If a request came in from “out of t he blue” I know they would contact me or my wife (or my kids) to make sure everything was legitimate.
Agreed, having a trustworthy advisor is a valuable asset, and should give you another layer of both advocacy and protection.
I don’t know what the answer is but I feel something should be done to protect people from these scams.