In the middle of last year, during the pandemic, my poor mother was scammed for about 20,000 USD. She fell for a very basic pyramid scheme where payments in increments of about $5,000 were asked of her in order for her name to be moved up a list to receive double what she put in. The scam also asked that she recommend friends to be in on it so they too would get a payout, luckily she was only able to convince one of her friends, who quickly saw it was a scam and pulled away before it was too late.
She didn’t tell me about it till months after it happened due to shame and embarrassment. I feel for her, because she has been a single mum my whole life and with all my siblings now adults, her money is finally hers, not for the survival of her kids. My mum is the most caring and selfless person I’ve ever known and my whole life it’s left her vulnerable to her taken advantage of. Though it angers me this happened, a small part of me was also not surprised and relieved it wasn’t more.
The worst part about it all is that my aunt, her older sister is the one who got her involved in this and is now refusing to offer my mum any compensation for her losses. I’m pretty sure my aunt is in on the scheme which has since victimized so many people in our community.
Mum has gone into depression to the point where she is starting to heavily drink and act out of character. My siblings and I have had to stage an intervention to help her get back on track and not risk losing more than she already has.
At this point, I’ve told her the money is gone and her best option is to move forward and not give this any more energy. She and my aunt’s relationship has deteriorated naturally, so there’s a big rift in the family now, too because of all this. Half the family wants to get authorities involved, which I’m sure would lead to prison time for my aunt if convicted, while the other family wants to sweep it under the rug.
I asked her what she wanted and she says justice. She’s always been the younger sister who got mistreated by her older sisters and I think this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I feel awful and I do want her to get some semblance of justice, but really unsure what there is to do about it. I am just so mad that people out there take advantage of the kind-hearted. I’m mad as a daughter that this happened to my mother, I’m mad that it was orchestrated by a family member and I’m mad that a woman who has struggled for most of her life is constantly kicked when she’s down.
Sometimes life is just so unfair, it seems especially unfair to those who are good.
Long vent, just wanted to get that off my chest as I figure out how to support mum.
Submitted April 13, 2021 at 02:55AM by Duckkycupcake13 https://ift.tt/3te2rBF
