Their parents give scammers all their money. The children can’t stop them

The Bliss impersonator often claimed he had been hospitalized due to bad periods and begged Alfred Mancinelli to send money so the hospital could start treating her. “Tell me how much you have left, honey,” the imposter said in a chat.

Although the scammers refused to chat with Alfred Mancinelli via audio or video, they occasionally reached through the screen and sent him trinkets in the mail and even pizza deliveries for his birthday.

Chris Mancinelli sought help from an elderly care manager and a therapist, and he cleaned out his father’s Google account (which was connected to two devices with Nigerian IP addresses). He set up a trust and financial plan to help his father manage his expenses.

When that didn’t go far enough, he went for the nuclear option: he took the last $100,000 from his father and put it in another account.

Unable to send money to a supposedly ill Bliss, Alfred Mancinelli became furious. Then he sued his son, in February 2023. He wanted his money back, plus interest and legal fees.

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

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

“If he didn’t pass, he would have continued,” said Mancinelli, who found documents showing his father may have been preparing to sell his home. His father had also taken out personal loans using his car and televisions as collateral.

The fraudsters knew so much about Alfred Mancinelli that they also targeted his family: Chris Mancinelli was threatened, he said, but the scammers also sent his youngest granddaughter photos of Alfred and demanded gift cards.

“The girls all knew their grandpa was being scammed,” Chris Mancinelli added, “so they were already on alert for any suspicious activity.”

Although Alfred Mancinelli passed cognitive tests, he had become more withdrawn, his son said. There were also some minor car accidents that he didn’t want to talk about.

“It is very difficult for us to accept that there was no invisible mental decline,” said Chris Mancinelli, “as the behavior seemed so strange in the man we knew growing up.”

Older people may also be more susceptible to the mind games that scammers are so adept at playing on fear, creating a sense of urgency or even stoking excitement about the prospects of a new romance or investment opportunity.

The goal is to put victims into a heightened state of emotion where they no longer think rationally but respond to those calls, researchers from the Stanford Center on Longevity, the FINRA Investor Education Foundation and the AARP Fraud Watch Network found.

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

In March, Nick J., a 38-year-old software engineer in New York, went 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 program offered through a woman claiming to be from South Korea. His father was up early one morning, focusing on real-time chats and charts tracking the spot market for gold. The next day, Nick learned that the trading platform his father was using was a hoax.

“Everything was moving, which made him feel like he was placing trades,” Nick said. “He was awake at odd hours day and night talking to people in Asia.”

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

Ultimately, his father siphoned off almost all of his savings and some borrowed money — almost $1 million.

That included $250,000 from a home equity line of credit, something his wife was shocked to discover when she casually checked her bank accounts on her phone. It was set up about a week before Nick’s visit.

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

Nick’s 74-year-old mother was also outraged that Bank of America did not notify her before clearing the entire line – which had long been dormant – at once.

William Halldin, a spokesman for the bank, said these lines of credit worked like any other joint account, meaning each authorized user could make transactions without the other account holder’s permission.

Nick’s mother went to the bank, but it denied her request for a refund. She has also filed a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The plan had started with a message on WhatsApp in 2023 from Aina, the woman who claimed to be from South Korea. After Nick’s father developed a romantic bond with her, Aina put him in touch with another woman, Meave, who claimed to be her friend and investment advisor in Hong Kong.

Aina shared many details about her life: a former husband who gambled away their money, a young son she had to support. Finally, she explained her connection to the gold market.

Nick’s father was led to believe that he was investing in an account set up by Meave. Meave also claimed that she had a connection with a prominent research analyst at Bank of America, who would provide real-time advice for a 10% commission – to be paid with new money, not profits that Nick’s father had supposedly recorded.

(A Bank of America spokesperson said 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.

“Every transaction I made was done with my own hand,” his father said in an interview. “I have lost the whole lot.”

A friend at the FBI told Nick’s father to stop sending money to Aina and her advisor, which he did. But by then there was little left. He still claims the woman and their connection were real.

His wife said she believed he clung to the idea that the money could be recovered because he wanted and even needed to. “He gave himself hope.”

His relationship with Nick and his other son remains fractured.

Chris Mancinelli never had the chance to reconcile with his father, Alfred, who died after failing to recover from the neck surgery he needed after a fall.

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

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.