Need help for my mother who was scammed a SIGNIFICANT amount of money

Pretty disappointing that the bank did not immediately flag these suspicious transactions and lock your mother's account. I've had my account temporarily locked because of a very small transaction to an international account that was outside my usual spending pattern. It may be a long shot, but investigate any possible remedy she may have against the bank for them potentially having failed to do their due diligence - remedy might be in Contact or Negligence - get legal advice. The bank obviously is covering it's own arse here so they will only point you to information that doesn't hurt them or they are not legally required to disclose.

The money is probably gone though. Unlikely to be any remedy against the scammer - file a police report anyway, give the bank the reference number of the report.

Assume your mother's info has been sold on the internet and she will be targeted by future scammers. See if you can set up automatic call screening on her mobile phone, see if it's an option to completely remove all landline phones from her house, review all of her email and social media - change passwords. Take her computer to a technician to have it scrubbed of any malware. Review her capacity to manage her own affairs, get legal + financial advice on what structures (eg: trusts) should be set up to prevent her being able to directly wire people huge sums from her account.

/r/personalfinance Thread