My mom (74) is getting scammed by “Elon Musk” and I don’t know how to stop it. The running total is $50k+ and she will be homeless soon if this continues. It all started 6 months ago. I was helping her out with an issue on her computer and noticed that she had a Coinbase bookmark on her browser. I asked her why she had it bookmarked. She then proceeded to say she had money in a crypto “brokerage” account. The site[1] she pulled up showed that she had assets totaling $70k+ and she had made 30% profit. As a software developer I was even surprised that the website was somewhat sophisticated. Of course, this was all a scam and I was eventually able to bring the site down by reporting it to the abuse email of Namecheap.
Soon after, I looked through her phone and found that they had been communicating quite a bit[3][4][5][6]. He built a relationship with her and she was/is in love with him. I decided to tell my family about her deeds and we had an intervention with her. Long story short, we thought this was the end of her dealings with “Elon.”
Turns out, it wasn’t over. I saw my mom over Thanksgiving and noticed that she was using her phone a lot. When she went to the bathroom I was able to get into her phone and noticed that she was still talking to “Elon” on Telegram. The website had also changed to https://megatradepro.com/ archived here at https://archive.vn/uHa8s and included image[2] and her invite through tidio.com[7]. She had promised him another $5k. At this point, I’ve tried everything to get through to her to no avail. Has anyone been through this before and can provide some guidance?
Tldr; My mom has been sending “Elon Musk” bitcoin, through crypto.com and coinbase, to fund his Mars missions. She is depleting her life savings quickly.
1.) https://asglobalassets.com
2.) https://i.imgur.com/jd7iTOi.png
3.) https://i.imgur.com/dvup0qb.jpg
4.) https://i.imgur.com/cGnEjbj.jpg
5.) https://i.imgur.com/HVsi2TT.jpg
6.) https://i.imgur.com/4CNBkv4.jpg
7.) https://i.imgur.com/jTlptQL.png
For me, it was a very straightforward process. We met with her lawyer, he asked her some questions, she gave some incorrect answers (like "How is your daughter doing?" My grandmother said fine, even though my mom was on a walker with RA; she called me by my uncle's name in the meeting.) The lawyer agreed she was not able to fully take care of herself, I met him in court in front of a judge, the judge asked me a few questions about accepting responsibility for my grandma, and a temporary guardianship was granted. That was automatically changed to permanent after 60 days. My grandma didn't have to go to court, I guess because of the lawyer's statement that he agreed she was incompetent.
It's a big responsibility to "takeover" a person like this, but it's also sometimes necessary to protect them. IANAL, but my understanding is a Power of Attorney grants you privileges of the other person, but they still have them too. Whereas guardianship gives you the rights and removes them from the person. Guardianship doesn't have to be permanent, though maybe in this case, that's warranted.