Because that is exactly who these scammers target. Not only the people who are vulnerable, but also the people who believe they aren’t.
She Was Married for Nearly 70 Years
Today’s guest (we’ll call her Stephanie) watched her mother become the target of a calculated scheme that could have absolutely taken everything.
Her mother had been happily married for nearly 70 years. She met her husband when she was 13, started dating him when she was 16, married him at 19. He was the only person she had ever been with. And when he died — after a long illness, at almost 90 — she was facing 70 years of grief, and she was absolutely not prepared or able to deal with it.
So she didn’t.
And that’s where the story starts.
The Man in the Soda Aisle
A few months after her husband passed, Stephanie’s mother was at the supermarket. An attractive older man struck up a conversation. They ended up at the Starbucks inside and talked for five hours.
Within weeks, she had moved in with him.
Stephanie’s siblings weren’t alarmed. She’s happy. It’s good. Let her live her life. But Stephanie couldn’t shake it. Something was off. Her spidey sense was tingling. The man was about 10 years younger than her mother, late seventies, a real estate agent with a fancy Mercedes and a beautiful Rolex. And her mother, who had spent 70 years with a man who took care of everything, saw someone who could take care of everything again.
What she didn’t see was that this was exactly what he was counting on.
The Red Flags That Are Easy to Miss
Here’s what it looked like from the outside, and why it was so easy to dismiss:
He was attentive. He drove her everywhere, cooked all her meals, brought her breakfast in bed, and took her to all her appointments. He made her feel safe and loved and taken care of. And then the smaller things started to accumulate.
He was always on speakerphone when Stephanie called, always sitting right next to her mom. She had to go out to her car to make private calls to her kids—at least, that’s what she said. Stephanie wasn’t even sure she was telling the truth.
When they made plans to see her, something would always come up. She’d get sick. He would call from her phone. Your mother’s not feeling well; she’s going to have to reschedule. She’s resting; you can call her later.
He turned off her location services. He deleted texts from her kids, so she thought her family didn’t care about her. And then he started screaming at her, once because she wasn’t home when he got there. Stephanie’s brother heard the whole thing.
The Wellness Check
When Stephanie’s sister called to check on their mother and he refused to let her speak to her, they got in the car. They called again from outside the building, got him to agree to record the call for “health tracking purposes,” and when he still refused to let them see her — they called the police.
An hour later, the cops did a wellness check.
They went upstairs and came back down. You can see her.
She was sitting on the sofa in a bathrobe at two in the afternoon. She was beyond out of it. It was as if she had been drugged.
They got her out that day. It took hours, getting her phone back from him, getting her clothes packed, getting her car back (he’d been driving it after his own car “broke down”), and retrieving her father’s phone, which this man had changed his listing in so that when he called, it showed up as The Love of Your Life. WTAF
When they finally got her outside, suitcase in hand, completely disoriented, the cops pulled them aside and said, “We didn’t want to say this on camera, but this guy has real serial killer energy. You need to get a restraining order.
What He Was Actually After
Once Stephanie’s mother was safe and the fog started to lift, the full picture emerged.
He had been trying to get her to marry him for months. He’d given her an engagement ring, taken her to his therapist—and sat in on every session—where the therapist told them to go to the beach and exchange vows. He’d been talking about moving into her house, fixing it up, and then selling it.
He had taken her Rolex to a watch shop and put it in under his name. He had asked for a finder’s fee to appraise her own jewelry. He had suggested she give her house to her grandchildren and pay him a commission on the transaction.
He said: I’ve made you the executor of my will. You should do the same for me.
He was probing for a way in. And every door was locked.
The Thing That Protected Her
Stephanie’s family had set up a family trust years earlier. Not because they were anticipating something like this. Just because it was the right thing to do.
That trust was the reason this man couldn’t immediately access her mother’s money. It was a financial speed bump. Not foolproof—her mother could have called her lawyer and amended the trust. But it slowed everything down long enough for Stephanie to notice, to push back, to eventually get her mother out.
Without it, Stephanie said, it would have been simple, simple, simple, simple. Everything would have been gone.
After her mother had been away from him for a while, she called one of her friends to tell her what happened. Her friend was quiet for a moment. And then she said, Actually, this happened to me. Everything I had was not in a trust. I thought we were in love. He took all of my money.
What This Means for You
Romance scammers and financial predators specifically target grieving widows and widowers, because grief can make someone desperate for connection. And connection, when it’s offered by the wrong person, can cost everything.
Here’s what Stephanie wants you to know:
If someone in your family has recently lost a long-term partner and is suddenly entangled with someone new, pay attention. Not all new relationships are bad. But watch the pattern. Are they becoming less capable? More isolated? Are you hearing from them less?
A trust is not just for the wealthy. It is a financial speed bump. It gives your family time. It means no one can immediately get at what your loved one has built over a lifetime.
Tell your friends what’s going on in your life. Every single one of Stephanie’s mother’s friends—including her manicurist—said they never trusted this man. But nobody said anything because she seemed so happy. The minute she started telling people the truth, they all said the same thing: I knew something was wrong. We have to stop being so polite that we let people we love walk into a minefield.
And if your elderly parents already have a trust—make sure it’s current. Not the version they signed 20 years ago. Check the beneficiaries. Look at the healthcare directives. A healthcare directive written at 50 can look very different from someone’s actual wishes at 80 or 90. People change. Their priorities change. The people they want making decisions for them change. Make sure the documents reflect who they are now.
What kind of protection do you need? Take the Quiz at Trust&Will.
Start the Conversation Today
I know it’s uncomfortable. I know it sounds like something you’ll get to eventually. But as Stephanie’s story shows — someone else may start that conversation for you, and you may not like where it goes.
If you need help getting started, I’ve partnered with Trust & Will, a leading online platform for estate planning. It’s legally valid in all 50 states, there’s a quiz to help you figure out exactly what you need, and you can do it from your phone.
Visit grownasswoman.guide/trustandwill to get started.
Complete Transcript
Do you think your elderly parent could be talked into a financial scam? I asked this recently in the Grown Ass community. 43% said they already worry about it. And for 28%, it’s already happened in their family. Stories about their parents, about themselves — people who describe themselves as sharp, aware, not the type — and it happened anyway.
Because that is exactly who these scammers target. Not only the people who are vulnerable, but also the people who believe they aren’t. Which is exactly what today’s episode is about.
Today’s guest — we’ll call her Stephanie for privacy purposes — watched her mother, a woman who had been happily married for nearly 70 years, become the target of a calculated scheme that could have absolutely taken everything.
Now, real quick — this episode is not legal advice. Nothing you hear today should be taken as legal, financial, or estate planning guidance. We are telling one family’s story, and it is a story worth hearing.
THE MARRIAGE
JACKIE Tell me a little bit about your parents’ marriage.
STEPHANIE It was a great thing to grow up with — knowing that your parents were into each other and were happy and that there was no drama in their marriage, as far as I know. But they were definitely very happy right until the end. My father used to talk about how my mother was the love of his life, and my mother was absolutely madly in love with him and would do anything. So yeah, they were very, very happily married.
JACKIE Given how long they were together — was your dad in charge? Did he handle the finances? What was your mom’s role?
STEPHANIE My father was a provider. He made the money and my mother spent the money. And so it was very traditional, that old marriage formula. My father was definitely able to use my mother to do the dirty work because she was much more of the enforcer in the family. And he was the nice guy. You’ll never find anyone who has anything bad to say about him. No matter who he was talking to, he always made you feel like the most important person in the room, which is a wonderful trait.
HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH
JACKIE And so when he passed in 2024, I can only imagine — your family, it just wasn’t the same.
STEPHANIE My dad was sick for several years leading up to it. He had a disease similar to ALS, so he was bedridden for the last two years of his life. It wasn’t a big shocker — he was almost 90. It’s one of these things where you know it’s coming, but you can’t really prepare for that.
And my mother was in complete denial. She just kept saying, he’s gonna be fine, he’s gonna get better, he’s gonna walk again. It was just really sad because he was the only person she was ever with. She met him when she was 13, they started dating when she was 16, and got married when she was 19. He was the love of her life. They were together for nearly 70 years.
JACKIE And so after he died, what did her life look like?
STEPHANIE I was pretty sure she was not going to live. You hear a lot about couples who’ve been together forever — one of them passes, and the other usually goes pretty quickly. But my mother’s very healthy and didn’t have any pressing health issues. She was devastated.
For the last two years of his life, there were a lot of caretakers — 24-hour care — and she was managing everything: the house, the finances, everything. And when he passed, she was facing 70 years of grief. She was absolutely not prepared or able to deal with that. She was just kind of a shadow of a person initially. And then she slowly started to process the grief, but I think it was just too much for her. So she didn’t even deal with it.
STEPHANIE And that’s very unhealthy, obviously, but also seemingly easier, right? It’s like your taxes — I’m just not gonna deal with it. But eventually you’re gonna deal with it, one way or another.
JACKIE One way or another.
STEPHANIE She was incapable of dealing with it and felt she really didn’t want to, or didn’t know how.
THE MAN IN THE SODA AISLE
JACKIE So take me to the day she meets her new friend.
STEPHANIE So my mother was in her late eighties, still independent, still doing everything by herself. Living in the house alone after my dad passed. And it was very difficult for her to be there — his medical equipment was still there, the Hoyer lift to get him in and out of the bed, all that stuff was there and he wasn’t.
And she was in the supermarket, in the soda aisle. She’s walking along, gets to the end of the aisle, and starts talking to some guy. My mother’s a very, very chatty person. She meets this attractive older man, and next thing you know they go over to the Starbucks part of the supermarket and spend five hours talking. Five hours.
She called me and said, I met this guy. And I’m like, what? My dad had only been gone for a few months. And it’s not like I said, no, no, don’t cheat on dad — I really didn’t care. I just wanted her to be happy. And within a few weeks, she moves in with him.
JACKIE Wow.
STEPHANIE And I’m like, what? And my sister says, she’s happy, it’s good, let her live there. And I said, I don’t know. I don’t have a good feeling about this guy. My spider sense is tingling. And she’s like, you’re just being alarmist. She’s happy and she’s not bothering us. And I talked to my brother and he’s like, no, no, she’s fine. She’s having a good time. And I’m like, about time? Dad’s been gone for a couple of months. And now whenever she comes over, he’s in tow.
JACKIE So you’re never seeing your mom by herself.
STEPHANIE Never. And whenever I call her, she’s on speakerphone and he’s sitting right next to her, listening to all of her calls. Involving himself in all of these family events and conversations and plans. And my siblings are like, it’s okay. And I’m like, this is not okay.
JACKIE So what are you thinking at this point? Is he lonely, is he controlling — what is your spidey sense saying?
STEPHANIE It was just odd to me that my mother so readily just put herself in the hands of another husband. Immediately. She had this guy who was now doing her grocery shopping for her, dropping off stuff at my house — your mother wanted you to have these oranges from her front yard. And I’m like, what?
He’s about 10 years younger than her. Late seventies. He’s a real estate agent. He’s got a fancy Mercedes, really nice clothes, a beautiful Rolex. And my mother’s like, yeah, this guy can take care of me.
And I had to really ask myself — is this me going, you’re not my father? Am I centering myself in this and making it about my grief? So I really had to explore that and make sure I wasn’t doing that. But there was just something not right. It was just not sitting right with me.
And she moves in with this guy, and I notice she is becoming less and less capable of anything. Whereas before she was running around-the-clock care, running everything. Now he’s driving her everywhere, cooking all her food, taking her to all her appointments. He’s on all the phone calls. Something just doesn’t seem right.
ISOLATION
STEPHANIE LA is loaded with wealthy older women who are widows and easy marks, because my mother was lonely and wanted the company of a man to feel safe. That’s how she grew up and it was important to her. And all of a sudden she’s hooked up with this guy who is now taking care of everything.
I’m trying to figure out why I don’t like it. We want to spend time alone with our mother just to see what’s going on. But we can’t have private family conversations because this guy is always sitting right next to her on speakerphone. She’d have to go out to her car to make phone calls to us so he wasn’t listening. At least, that’s what she said — I wasn’t even sure she was telling the truth.
And at one point my mother was sitting with my brother, who was trying to figure out what was going on, and the boyfriend called her. And started screaming at her because she wasn’t home when he got there. So we heard him screaming at our mother and we’re like — this guy screams at our mother? What the hell?
And we would make plans to see her. Then the day we were supposed to see her, she’d get sick — and he would call us from her phone. Your mother’s not feeling well, she’s gonna have to reschedule. Can we talk to her? She’s resting right now, you call her later. And I’m like — why are you calling me from her phone? It just kept getting more and more suspect. Every time we tried to make plans with her alone, something would happen to her physically.
So it was right around my birthday and I wanted to have a gathering — just my mom and my sister, just the girls. He called me two days before from her phone. I answered thinking it was her. And he goes, hey, your mom can’t make it to your party. I said, I don’t understand. He goes, yeah — she has norovirus. I’m a medical expert. And I’m like — aren’t you a real estate agent?
JACKIE She’s got norovirus. Very dangerous.
STEPHANIE And I’m like, you’re lying in bed next to her — how come you don’t have this norovirus? He goes, I never get sick. Because he’s a medical expert.
And he goes, yeah, she can’t make it. But she’ll call you when she’s awake, she’s resting right now. And I said okay. And then he goes — do me a favor. Don’t tell your brother and sister that we talked. And I’m like — you want me to keep my mother’s health issues a secret from my brother and my sister? He goes, don’t tell them we talked, I appreciate it. Thanks. And he hangs up.
And I immediately call my sister. I tell her what’s going on, she says, that’s kind of weird. So she calls my mother’s phone. He answers. She says, I want to talk to my mother, I hear she’s not feeling well. She’s resting, you can’t talk to her. Well, I want to talk to her. Well, she’s resting. Well, wake her up. No. Hangs up the phone.
My sister’s husband was standing right there. They get in the car, drive over. I live five minutes from this person, so they pick me up on the way. We pull up in front of his building and call again. And my sister says — hey, can we just record this call so we don’t forget any of the details? He says sure. And then she goes, now we’re recording it — because you can’t record a call and use it as evidence if you don’t have someone’s permission.
JACKIE Right.
STEPHANIE So now we’re recording. I want to see my mother. You can’t see your mother. Every time my mother was here, we would turn on location services so I’d know where she was. And then it would always be turned off — he was turning it off on her phone. So we don’t even know if she’s there. We want to see her. She’s sleeping. Wake her up. I don’t want to wake her up. We’re calling the cops. Call the cops. And he hangs up. And I’m like — oh my God. I’m living in a Dateline episode.
THE WELLNESS CHECK
STEPHANIE So we call the cops. An hour later they show up. We say — our mother is an elderly woman, she’s moved in with this guy, and now he’s preventing us from seeing her. We need a wellness check.
JACKIE Right, because she’s an adult.
STEPHANIE She’s an adult. So the cops go upstairs and they come back down and say, okay, you can see her. We go upstairs. She’s sitting on the sofa next to him in a bathrobe. It’s almost two in the afternoon.
She is beyond out of it. It’s as if she had been drugged. She’s blotto and he’s sitting there next to her, all lovey-dovey.
I said, we want to talk to her. He goes, you can talk to her. I said, we don’t want you here. He says, I’m not leaving. And the cops told him to go in the other room. The cops stayed and watched.
I said, mom, we’ve got to get you out of here. This guy is harming you, he’s preventing you from seeing us. She says, what are you talking about? I love him. Mom, you don’t know what’s going on. You’re obviously under some sort of influence right now. Just come home for a day or two. Okay, just a day or two. Because her house was sitting empty.
My sister goes into the bedroom to help her pack. And I go, where’s your phone? He has it. So I go to him: we want her phone. He says, I’m the only one who gets to give her her phone. I said — no. Give me the phone. The cops made him hand it over.
My mother was barely able to walk five steps. And before this, she was completely active, doing everything herself.
JACKIE Oh my God.
THE PHONE
STEPHANIE And then it turns out the guy had been holding onto my dad’s phone.
JACKIE What?
STEPHANIE My dad’s phone — still working. And in my father’s phone, this guy had changed his own listing. So if he ever called my mother from my father’s phone, it came up as ‘The Love of Your Life — ‘ and then his name. That’s how he listed himself. He was literally changing the settings in my father’s cell phone.
JACKIE He took your father’s phone. Your father’s phone is still working. Wow.
STEPHANIE So we have to go back and get that. And he had stuff in her car too. Because his car had supposedly broken down, so he was just using my mother’s car. So now my mother had no car and he had it.
We get everything out, we get her out, we’re standing in front of the building. She’s got a suitcase. She’s completely disoriented. This guy had been love bombing her and infantilizing her for eight months.
JACKIE Wow.
STEPHANIE And the cops pull us aside and say — listen, we didn’t want to say this on camera, but this guy has real serial killer energy. You need to get a restraining order.
THE TOX SCREEN
STEPHANIE We immediately take her to get a tox screen — basically the kind of drug test you’d take when starting a new job. They’re testing for meth, cocaine, that kind of thing. Nothing came up. So whatever he was giving her, it wasn’t something a standard tox screen would catch. He was probably giving her sleeping pills or something like that — we couldn’t figure it out.
We get her home. She’s so fragile she could barely walk five steps. And we’re like — who are you? What has happened to you?
EIGHT MONTHS OF SECRETS
STEPHANIE Then we start talking to my mother, and all of the facts start coming out about the last eight months. And it is mind-blowing.
A couple of hours before my dad died, he turned to my mother and said — whatever you do, don’t get remarried. Have all the fun you want, be with anyone you want, have a good time. Just don’t get remarried. And she said okay.
We find out that for months this guy had been trying to get her to marry him. He gave her an engagement ring — the most garbage engagement ring you’ve ever seen in your life. But she was so love-bombed that she was wearing it. He kept saying, let’s go to the beach and exchange vows. And then he took her to his therapist — but sat in on all the sessions. And the therapist said they should go to the beach and exchange wedding vows.
And we find out that when the cops arrived, he came into the bedroom and started giving her math problems. She said she was asleep and he came in and said, what’s 26 plus 26? He was trying to make her seem as cognizant as possible before the cops got there.
This guy kept saying he wanted to move into her house, help fix it up, and then they could sell it. He was going to steal the house.
And he kept saying things like — I’ve made you the executor of my will. You should do the same for me. And my mother said to him, everything I have is in a trust. If I need any money, I have to get it from my son. The first part of that is true — everything is in a trust. But she still has full agency.
We don’t have power of attorney yet because she’s still highly functioning. So this guy was slowly trying to get into the house, into her will, into her finances, into her real estate — all of it — by being her boyfriend and love bombing her.
And had we not prepared many years earlier with a family trust, he would’ve taken everything.
JACKIE Wow.
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STEPHANIE She’s telling us all of these things he did. And with every day that she’s away from him, she’s becoming stronger. More mental acuity, more understanding of things. It’s like the spell is being lifted off of her.
THE WATCH
STEPHANIE And it turns out my mother has this Rolex that my dad bought for her many years ago. It belonged to her favorite celebrity — it was a gift from that celebrity’s husband, engraved with her name on it.
This guy was obsessed with Rolexes. He said to her — why don’t we take your watch in and get it appraised and fixed up? But don’t tell your kids. And it turned out he would say that about a lot of things — don’t tell your kids.
So she gives him the Rolex, and he takes it to a well-known watch shop and puts it in under his name. Now the Rolex is essentially his, because she can’t pick it up — his name is on the ticket.
And she says — he thinks it’s worth a lot of money. And he said I should give him a finder’s fee. And another thing — instead of selling my house, I might give it to one of my grandchildren. And he told me I should give him a commission on that.
JACKIE What?
STEPHANIE Yeah. It did seem weird that he was asking for a commission on a real estate deal that had nothing to do with him.
So I call the watch shop. I say — my mother’s boyfriend dropped off a watch, he’s trying to steal from her, you cannot give it to him. And the watch shop owner says — I understand completely. When my mom died, my dad remarried, and when my dad died, his second wife tried to steal his Rolex. We had to prove he paid for it. Do you have the receipt? I said — my dad gave it to her 14 years ago. He said, I can’t give it to you without proof. But I’ll put a note on it — nobody gets the Rolex.
JACKIE: Now, how is Stephanie’s family going to get the Rolex back? What they didn’t realize is one move they made was the key.
THE RESTRAINING ORDER PLAY
STEPHANIE The day after we got her out, we went to the court to try to get a restraining order, because he had come to my house, banging on the door. He said she needed a transfusion. He was harassing me, harassing everyone in my family. He’s like, she’s sick, I’m the only one who knows how to take care of her, she needs a transfusion, we have to take her to the hospital immediately. And I have all of this on my Ring doorbell.
We go to the court and they say — no, you can’t get a restraining order. We’ll give you a court date. And here’s what we didn’t realize: when you apply for a restraining order, it goes into a record that attorneys have access to. And those attorneys start sending letters — there’s been a restraining order application, we can represent you. So this guy gets one of those letters and thinks we have a restraining order, which we don’t. And he panics.
He’s calling us: you need to drop that restraining order right now, it’s going to destroy my business, my clientele, my three offices, I’m the top realtor in the country. And we’re just like — uh-huh. He thinks we have a restraining order and we are certainly not going to correct him. And what leverage do you have?
We knew he had dropped off the Rolex under his name and we couldn’t get it back. So we said — give us the ticket for the Rolex and we’ll drop the restraining order. And his counteroffer was: I want you to send your mother to the watch shop alone, where I will present her the watch when it’s fixed. And I get to spend 20 minutes alone with her with no one else there.
JACKIE This guy is psychotic.
STEPHANIE Psychotic. And he’s constantly texting her, calling her from burner phones because we blocked him. And the crazy thing is — this is why you have to tell your friends what’s going on. Once my mother started to come back to herself mentally, she started calling her friends. Every single one of them said, I did not trust that guy. But nobody said a thing because she seemed so happy. Even her manicurist. The minute she says, we had to have the police extricate me, he was trying to steal my watch and my house — and the manicurist goes, oh yeah, that guy’s bad news. Literally.
JACKIE Wow.
STEPHANIE So we’ve got to find a safe place for her to live because she can’t stay in her house. And we’re apartment hunting.
And then he sends the cops to my house because he wants to do a wellness check on her. These are two new cops, and they’re like, he wants to talk to her. And I’m like, I don’t care what he wants — he doesn’t get to talk to her. He’s a psychopath. And one cop says, can I just talk to her on the phone, just for a minute? And she’s out apartment hunting with my sister, eating a turkey sandwich. We get her on the phone. Cop says, she’s fine. I said — I know she’s fine. And then I start playing the Ring camera footage and the phone recordings. And the cop goes, oh God, you need a restraining order. I said — yeah, I know.
THE NOTE
STEPHANIE He eventually drops off the Rolex ticket. But he’s left a note for my mother. And he said — when I give her the watch, I have to give her this note. And I’m like, what?
My mother was so love-bombed and brainwashed that even now we’re not sure that if she spent time with him, she wouldn’t immediately go back. Because these are her options — loneliness and grief, or some psychopath who’s going to take care of everything. And I can almost understand why she would choose him over that. Processing 70 years of a happy marriage — that grief is terrifying.
And I don’t know what to do because I want to be ethical. I don’t want to take this guy’s note. But I also don’t want her to see it. And my mother’s so fragile — this guy is the love bombing champion of the world. If she sees that note, she could go right back to him.
So we go to the watch shop to pick up the watch. And the owner is holding the note in his hand. I can see it — it’s on this guy’s letterhead, a long handwritten note. And I’m like, oh God.
The watch shop owner hands her the watch, hands her the repair paperwork — and doesn’t hand her the note. I see it in his hand. He kept it. I think he understood.
And my mother says, how much is my watch worth? He says, I’m not Antiques Roadshow, I just repair watches. But here’s what happened — in the 1940s and ’50s, people would buy a Rolex, take it out of its bracelet, and take it to their jeweler to have a custom bracelet built around it. This is not a Rolex bracelet. Rolex did not deal in diamonds and rubies. This is a celebrity bracelet with a Rolex set into it.
She goes, so it’s not worth a million dollars? He says, well, it’s worth whatever you want it to be worth. But no.
This guy kept telling my mother the watch was worth a million dollars. He was going to take her watch. He was going to take her house. He was going to take all of her money. And if everything hadn’t been locked up in a trust — it would have been gone. Simple, simple, simple, simple.
AFTERMATH
STEPHANIE After all is said and done, she calls one of her friends to tell her what happened. And her friend is quiet for a minute. And then she says — actually, this happened to me.
JACKIE Oh no.
STEPHANIE Her friend said — when my husband and I broke up, I started seeing this guy. Everything I had was not in a trust. I thought we were in love. He took all of my money.
JACKIE Wow. And you’re not thinking that — your parent who’s been married for 67 years, you assume she’ll grieve, she’ll be with family. I wouldn’t even imagine my mother-in-law in this situation.
STEPHANIE It never occurred to me that my mother would shack up with a new boyfriend four months after my dad died. As she’s approaching her late eighties. But part of me saw it — she seemed so happy at first. And then suddenly she seemed so frail. Because yes, she was being held captive. But it was little things: she wasn’t remembering dates, she wasn’t remembering conversations, she was unable to walk across the street. Whatever he was doing to her, he basically infantilized her and took away any independence she had. And I think she welcomed it because she was conflating it with being taken care of. He literally turned her into a baby so he could baby her.
JACKIE So where’s your mom? How is she now? What is the situation?
STEPHANIE The situation is she’s living somewhere safe. A new place, lots of security, a really great building. He can’t get in unless she invites him in.
And after we got the watch, we went back to her new apartment, and she said to me — do you think he was lying about this or that? And I said, when someone lies to me once, I just consider them a liar. And everything they say to me is a lie. And she looked at me and said — do you think he was lying to me when he said that he loved me?
I didn’t know what to say. It’s just the most heartbreaking moment. I said, what do you think? And she said, I don’t know. The whole time I’m sitting there thinking — of course he didn’t love you. He loved your money. But I couldn’t say that. That would be too devastating. She’s had enough loss.
JACKIE And financially, he never got anything of significance.
STEPHANIE Nothing. At one point she realized she’d left her emeralds in his safe — we had the cops go retrieve them. But here’s the thing: she’s starting to realize that for eight months, he paid for all her groceries, all her meals, cooked everything. So she actually feels like she may have swindled the swindler. Unknowingly.
JACKIE Because he was investing in the situation and never got the payout.
STEPHANIE Exactly. And apparently he had some real estate deal in another state going south and needed a cash infusion. And at one point my mother had actually considered getting in on it. And I’m like — oh my God. It was all just so obvious. I’m like, mom, you are in an episode of Dateline.
JACKIE This guy is waiting for a podcast to be created around him.
STEPHANIE My God.
WAS IT ELDER ABUSE?
JACKIE He wasn’t arrested — he didn’t technically do anything illegal.
STEPHANIE That’s the thing. I have a friend who’s a therapist. I told her what was going on. She said — was he preventing her from talking to you? Yes. He was controlling her phone, deleting texts from us. She was made to think her family didn’t care about her. And my friend said — that is actually elder abuse, and that’s against the law. If someone is knowingly keeping you away from your family, that is elder abuse.
And was he verbally abusive to her? Yes — my soon-to-be sister-in-law heard the whole thing. And she said, that’s also elder abuse and against the law. So I had him on elder abuse if I really wanted to drop a dime. But at this point we just wanted to get her away and safe and back to who she was.
STEPHANIE The biggest problem we’re dealing with now is she’s completely riddled with sadness — about my dad, and about him. And I feel like at any moment, she could go right back to him and there’s nothing I could do about it.
So we wrote a long list of everything he did to her and printed it out in large font. So if she ever starts thinking, well, it wasn’t that bad — we say, please read this list again. Someone who loves you doesn’t ask for a commission on your house. Someone who loves you doesn’t try to take your belongings or force you to marry them or keep you away from your family.
OTHER VICTIMS
JACKIE Do you think there were other victims?
STEPHANIE Yes. Because just looking at my mother and her friends — nobody wants to talk about it. They’re embarrassed. It’s sort of like sexual assault in that way. A lot of women think, this is my fault, I let this happen. So they don’t report it. And my mother kept saying — I’m a smart woman. Why did I fall for this? And I said, mom, it happens all day, every day. They wouldn’t have 5,000 podcasts and Dateline on TV telling this story over and over again if it didn’t. Her friend who this happened to is a very smart person and she lost millions. It’s shocking how easy it is.
JACKIE And the circle around her — the manicurist, the friends — they all had a bad vibe, but everyone wanted to be polite. And you were the only vocal one.
STEPHANIE Molly, you in danger, girl. And nobody was paying attention to me.
And by the way, full disclosure — I never said to her, mom, I don’t trust this guy. Because I had a sinking feeling that she would tell me I was wrong, it would drive a wedge between us, and push her closer to him.
JACKIE She would cut you out instead of him.
STEPHANIE Exactly. She saw me as a threat to her happiness. And all of this is rooted in her not wanting to deal with the grief. If you walk through the grocery store, you walk through Target, you walk down the street — there are a lot of older women, a lot of people who’ve lost partners, and they’re vulnerable. And some guy comes by with a really nice car and a great line and wants to take care of you. And you think — this is an established real estate agent, I’m going to be safe with this person. Without even realizing you’ve stepped into a minefield.
WHAT TO TAKE FROM THIS
JACKIE Someone’s listening right now. What do you want them to take from this?
STEPHANIE If you have somebody in your family who has recently lost a long-term partner and is suddenly entangled with someone new — really take a look at what’s going on. Not all new partners are terrible. But it’s really important that your finances are in a trust, or in a position where someone cannot just immediately get at them. It’s not a guarantee, but it was a real, real helper for us. It’s a financial speed bump.
Also — each of us has a friend who’s dating a complete jerk. And if you say something, you might lose the friendship. So instead of saying, I think this is happening to you, say — let me tell you what happened to this friend of mine. Or, you should really listen to this podcast. Because it goes on all day, every day.
Check in on your elderly parents. And it’s almost like you become the parent — I have a kid, I have a mom, I’m watching over both of them. Sandwich generation. But that’s what you have to do, because there are a lot of smart people out there who know this game. And this guy completely groomed my mother, love-bombed her, and had her eating out of the palm of his hand.
And if my sister and I had not been so diligent — this would have had a completely different ending.
JACKIE What happened to Stephanie’s mom, unfortunately, is not rare. Romance scammers and financial predators specifically target grieving widows and widowers, because grief can make someone feel desperate for connection.
The thing that protected Stephanie’s family was not luck. It wasn’t just having a watchful daughter — although that was helpful. It was the trust.
So if your elderly parents have a trust, and I hope they do — now is the time to make sure it’s current. Not the version they signed 20 or more years ago. Check the beneficiaries. Look at the healthcare directives. A healthcare directive written at 50 can look very different from someone’s actual wishes at 80 or 90.
People change. Priorities change. The people they want making decisions for them change. Make sure the documents reflect who they are now and what they want now.
And if you need help, Trust & Will can help streamline the process — and it’s legally valid in all 50 states. Visit grownasswoman.guide/trustandwill.
I know it can be super difficult, but start the conversations with your family today — before someone else starts it for you.
Thank you so much for listening. I’m Jackie MacDougall, and this is The Grown Ass Woman’s Guide.
Until next time — you are a grown-ass woman. Act accordingly.
