After Mom, who lives in FL, was involved in a car accident (hit by a drunk driver) I discovered a $9,000 balance on her Visa made to help pay for my oldest brother's step-daughters wedding, he lives in the same town as my Mom. I also discovered my sister-in-law had talked Mom into putting her as an authorized user on her Visa "So I can pick up pads and stuff for you". I also discovered a check Mom signed and my oldest brother made out to himself for $4,500. He has claimed he will repay these debts but made two Visa payments totaling $400 right after the accident and now won't talk to me. My other brother (who lives in Ohio) has tried talking to him and he always claims he's getting ready to pay it all off. All this time I've used her funds to make minimum payments and now I've had to move her back to the nursing home and since her only source of income was social security she is now on Medicaid. Visa began collection calls when I stopped paying and I explained the situation, talked to collections dept., fraud dept. (who said they couldn't do anything) and finally disputed the charges so I could get copies. I talked to the State Attorney and he said if I had copies of the signature receipts along with a complaint letter from Mom I could file charges. I hate to do this but my older brother won't discuss this with me, stopped seeing my Mom when all this was discovered, and will only text me occasionally to tell me to "back off the visa, I'm gonna pay it". I have tried to discuss finances with my Mom for the past 5 - 10 years and she would always tell me to mind my own business. Well now it is my business and I'm on Xanax because of the stress and anxiety this has all caused. I work full time and live 2 hours away in AL and have made 20 trips to FL in the past 8 months. There are many, many, many more drama's in this story but I've just spent the last four night preparing a Victim Impact Statement because the defendant has decided she is tired of dealing with this (poor thing!) and has filed a demand for a speedy trail, and have been dealing with the nursing home and Mom's plea's to take her home. This has been one drama after another!
I think this made them think about getting their affairs in order. Since then my folks mental and physical health has declined rapidly and I've used the POA to keep things in order. I know his is easier said than done, especially with crappy sibs and relatives, but it's got to be done early in the game. If you're reading this and you are 50 plus years old, get with your families and get this done for your own affairs now. Don't put you kids through the same kind of hell all these folks are writing about on this site.
What I find amazing is how people care about what other crappy, sh***ty family members think, or even want to keep in contact with them when there is no reason to or necessity. I also find it amazing not to prosecute 'family' when they are criminally wrong, just because they wear the sainted label 'family'.
Yes, much of this can be explained. However, when someone gives an evil individual a pass, what are you going to do when said individual goes out and hurts or destroys someone else? I see this same sort of excuse and pass given for 'family' molesters who go on and are arrested for molesting someone elses kid. And it comes out that the 'family' knew about 'uncle albert' for a long time and covered for 'albert' even if their own child was molested. Sometimes it is more than just about your own family. We can very well impact other members of society for our lack of response.
She has been reported for elderly abuse and I have talked to my mother's case manager. Since I live in another city, I am going to have to ravel to the city where the crime took place and report it to the local police department fraud unit. the case manger di assure me that a detective in the city where my niece and mother live has been assigned to the case. My niece may be facing a domestic abuse charge. I am hiring an attorney to deal with this "chick" because she has stolen too much money and continues to exploit my mother.
My mother told me and one of my other sisters what was going on, but refused to press charges on either of them. She was embaressed, with this being a small town and didn't want neighbors to know that her daughter was capable of doing this.
Our mother would no longer take vacations because she said she was afraid those two would steal from her house when she was gone. It was a terrible situation. But, unless our mother pressed charges, our hands were tied. We tried to get our mother to move back to our State, but she didn't want to leave because our father was buried there. And because she was in her right mind, we were told by a lawyer there was nothing we could do unless she agreed.
We did confront the two crooks and told them to hand in their house keys, but when we went home, our sister went crying to our mother and got her key back. After that meeting, it that just made them "kick into high gear", and even more things went missing.
(These two and our mother lived two States away), we tried getting that sister's name off the bank accounts and as soon as we went home, she took our mother back to the bank and switched everything back. They also took her to get her Will changed as well.
It really was horrible. Now that our mother has passed (under very suspicious circumstances, a month after the Will change) the rest of the family has cut off any communications with those two. We can not understand how a daughter could do something like that to her own mother?
And now there has been nothing but bullsh___- all the time. Our Mom is gone now. Dad just sits and crys. They put him in a ssisant living. He has a beautiful home, but they closed it up. I offered to keep him there, but was told no way. Dad won't last much longer God will take him home. He had someone
to call me and I went an took him out to my fishing cabin, no one knows where it
is, we were gone for 2 weeks. We fished , went on walks and enjoyed nature.
When I brought him back, they thought I had brought them someone else. Of course Dad didn't want to go back. The sisters tried to cause trouble, but they had no leg to stand on. By the way 1 week later Dad got a taxi and went to his own home. He had a neighbor call me to tell me he was there. I went over. Of course all he-- broke out over this. I am so tired of it all. But I will stand up for DAd AS LONG AS I CAN. Good for u in standing up for your Mother.
I've been reading these posts because I am currently dealing with the same sort of problem. My mom was living with me and my husband last year when she was diagnosed with 'mild dementia'. She and I discussed this and we decided the best course of action would be to put the bulk of her assets into a trust with me as the trustee.
I offered my siblings each a copy of the trust and neither wanted one.
A few months later my sister starts telling my mom how I had "stolen" her money and that how as POA I was taking everything she had. I sent sister and brother all the financial info I had to prove I had not taken out any money that was not for mothers use, and had receipts to prove it.
Long about Christmas my sister picks up my mom for a "two week visit" at my aunts. After the visit instead of bringing her back to our home, she took her to hers. She cut off contact,, saying that mother was having heart problems and that I upset her since I had "stolen all of her money". I continued to try to prove to my sister that the money was still where it was supposed to be. Even sent $10,000 to mother that sis said was needed.
So, contact was limited till April when I got word I was being sued for a half million dollars. Mothers entire fortune is worth less than half that, by the way. I called and offered to put everything back in mothers name if she felt that strongly about it, and was in the process of moving the money in the brokerage account back to her name when the broker got word that he, too was being sued for a half million dollars. Not only did suit get filed against me and against her broker, the brokerage firm, the bank where the trust account was held, and the two lawyers who set up the trust. So, naturally, everything got frozen.
I offered to transfer everything back out of the trust twice, but both times my offers were refused. Finally, about a month ago I called my sisters house to give my mother my new phone number and was told by my sister that she had moved to assisted living, but didn't want me to have her phone number or know where she was.
I hunted around till I found her. She was extremely happy to hear from me, and when I asked her if it was OK to give her number to my brother she cried because my sister had told her he was dead! My sister had taken her off of her dementia medications. Mother could not dial her own phone, could not work the tv remote or make coffee. The folks at assisted living told me she wasn't doing well there at all.
The next weekend we brought her a picture phone that we thought she would be able to work. Discovered the phone tap. Also discovered the phone numbers she had didn't work. Sister had taken her address book and left only bogus numbers. Also, since she had found out about our previous visit, Sister had put a recording device (taped securely) to my mothers phone. Sister had also contracted with an agency to provide 24 hour care for mother at a cost of over $500 a day. Mother was miserable, as anyone would be. She had a stranger sleeping in a bed right next to her every night, talking baby talk to her and trying to dress her like a child.
Anyway, the next weekend my husband and I just drove up there and picked her up. She did well at our house for a week, so we notified the assisted living place that she was moving out and coming to live with us.
So.. the week mother was with us, dear sis used her POA to sell mother's car, to empty both bank accounts and to take other personal property from a house mother owns (but is in the trust). She left her with a credit card bill for $380 and $290 in the bank. She went through $33,000 cash in 7 months plus what she got for the car. We found the car on a lot nearby with a pricetag of $15,999.
So, while sis was keeping me distracted with the lawsuit she was taking everything she could get her hands on.
Discover card does not allow POAs to charge on their cards, so they are pursuing credit card fraud charges against sister. We talked to the police about the car and they helped us find it, but seem to think it isn't a criminal matter. When we revoked POA at the lawyer who filed the suit (who now, most likely regrets not checking out sisters story!) we gave her a list of things we wanted, plus requested an accounting of where all of mothers money went. That was two weeks ago.. no response. Then a few days ago my lawyer sent her a sternly worded letter saying the same thing. So far, no response.
Next step is to go to adult protective services and see what they can do about elder financial abuse. We can make a case for emotional ab use as well, but mother is in a good place now and is very happy. We have a lady who comes in and "stays' with mother during the day while I work. I put 'stays' in quotes because they hardly ever stay home. Those two go out to lunch and to second hand stores and all kinds of fun stuff during the day. Hubby drives.
this, for I have a HEAVENLY FATHER THAT LOVES ME AND PROMISES A BEAUTIFUL LIFE IN HEAVEN FOR ALL WHO EXCEPT HIM AS TOLD OF IN THE BIBLE. I believe the Bible with all my heart....YES JESUS LOVES ME!
How can we not forgive others, when Jesus gave His life foe us?
My mother in law passed and know before she passed I was there helping take care of her and her husband, they had nurses that came in and done there thing. Well I would have to take her husband to his Dr visits and learnt alot that was going on. when my MIL was sick it was kept from my husband heck the nurses that came in didn't even know he was her son thanks to his sister. Then we was finally told she was dieing. How can ur sister keep that from you? Then when she passed, I wasn't aloud to take him to the dr any more she took over, where not told about anything the house is a big pig sty and now she gets paid from someone to take care of him. She don't tell us when he has appointments and when we ask how they have went she said there's no problems, but we found out he's go Demetra but where not suppose to know. She's on the checking account and credit cards. one i seen the other day accidently said 5,678.32, there's no way he has charged this. She has xbox,ipad,also on the cell phone bill there's 4 phones on the bill. We don't know if she has poa or what. she gets a check from VA for 1000.00 for taking care of him. She has always lived off of welfare maybe in all these yrs she might have had 6 jobs. My poor husband just don't know what to do. Can someone please help us before he looses everything he has. We don't know what rights he has as a son.