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How Fraudsters Targeted My Elderly Mom and I Fought Back From An Ocean Away

A true story sprinkled with tips on how to protect yourself or your loved ones

Mary DeVries
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age
12 min readJan 10, 2025

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Old woman sitting at a table with one hand covering half her face and the other holding a bright blue phone to her ear. She looks distressed.
Photo by Kampus Production:

I discovered the fraud and the dementia at the same time via text.

We noticed a new sign-in to your Google Account on a Windows device. If this was you, you don’t need to do anything. If not, we’ll help you secure your account.

Windows? I’m an Apple gal. Wait a minute, this is for Mom’s account?

Protip #1: Add your email as a recovery option to your loved ones key accounts such as Google and Apple

Mom doesn’t own a computer only an iPhone and iPad. Was it one of my many siblings, visiting and trying to help Mom? A quick phone call ruled out that theory.

I used my recovery email status to log into my Mom’s gmail. In amongst all the legit but exploitative and the straight up scam emails was an alarming number of your-account-details-have-been changed-if-this-was you-don’t-worry-about-it-if-not-panic-now emails.

Luckily, years ago I had used my iPad to log into Mom’s bank while helping her with a problem. I’d meant to delete the app immediately not intending to be all up…

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Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

Published in Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” (Frank Lloyd Wright) Non-fiction pieces, personal essays and occasional poems that explore how we feel about how we age and offer tips for getting the most out of life.

Mary DeVries
Mary DeVries

Written by Mary DeVries

I delight, despair and write about a life lived around the world. Fueled by Yorkshire Gold tea.

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