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My fil lives in Algeria. He's mid-60s, not long retired, he's been married to a local lady for maybe 15 hears. He has (still, as far as we know) a chunky french defined benefits pension.
He has been having some money issues, which have now culminated in his asking my wife to lend him some money (£5k), to tide him over (the claim is that his french bank account has been locked as he lives abroad). This seems feasible, but he's not particularly close to my wife, and is a proud man, so we would very much be the lender of last resort.
We can afford to lend him the money, but we're concerned that this may be some form of scam he's fallen for. Obviously it's hard to judge someone you know as gullible enough to fall for a romance/Ponzi/investment fraud, and even harder (with my wife having a not-super-close relationship with him) to push him on the finer details of his situation.
We're calling him tomorrow so we are comfortable it's not a scam on us, but what questions would you be asking/how would you steer the conversation to figure out if this is actually a needed "tide me over" payment Vs money being thrown down the drain?
Ask for proof of locked account and why ?
You're thinking of sending £5k to someone else's bank account.
Who you don't know.
Overseas.
Because someone you think you know can't access their own bank account.
Just think about that.
And then don't do it.
£5k? How long is he expecting his bank account to be locked for? Ask for pics of bank letters? Or emails forwarded for any messages from the bank?
It's an awkward conversation but it is in everyone's interests that you are sure he isn't being scammed before sending money.
If my father had needed money I would have given it to him if I had it as a repayment for financial and other help over the years. There is no point giving him cash though if his money has run out because he has been scammed and it's just more for the scammer.
I might be able to scrape together £5k to lend a relative but I'd need to know how long for and how exactly they intend paying it back. I don't think that asking both of those questions would be infringing on his "pride". Just butter him up with some "Dad - you've always been so great at handling your money" chat first.
Just talking with him about what’s happened and why and what the loaned money is for might be enough
if you’ve ever had to withdraw large sums of cash from the bank the teller will often chat about what the money is for. It seems like small talk but it’s a deliberate technique that helps prevent scams. People who are being scammed are often being hurried, embarrassed, or harangued by the scammer and in that state are thinking more about what they are required to do to end that pressured situation than about why they’re being asked to do. it puts them in a state of denial and simply recounting what they are doing, or being asked to do, slows things down and gives people a chance to see what’s actually going on. Just saying it out loud is often enough for people to see what’s really going on.
i think if you’re talking to him a useful thing to glean is whether his wife is aware of / party to whatever the problem is, and the solution to it (ie asking you for the loan). Can you even talk to her about it. If he’s hiding the situation from her for instance that would be a tell. Might indicate pressure from a third party, might indicate something like gambling or another addiction.
You’re thinking of sending £5k to someone else’s bank account.
Who you don’t know.
We do know my fil and are calling him tomorrow to ensure it's him
.Ask for proof of locked account and why
Ask for pics of bank letters? Or emails forwarded for any messages from the bank?
It’s an awkward conversation but it is in everyone’s interests that you are sure he isn’t being scammed before sending money.
This is the tricky thing.. we don't want to come across as not believing/trusting him, but our concern is he may be being scammed..
I might be able to scrape together £5k to lend a relative but I’d need to know how long for and how exactly they intend paying it back. I don’t think that asking both of those questions would be infringing on his “pride”.
Happy to do that but if he's been taken for a scam he may have answers to that which aren't necessarily right? That's our concern
My mil has fallen for a few scams like this (and others sadly). I'd have no qualms whatsoever about quizzing your fil in great depth about what's happening and why, whether or not that makes him feel unbelieved. Better all round to make sure it's legit than not. From the above it sounds really dodgy to be honest.
There is no point giving him cash though if his money has run out because he has been scammed and it’s just more for the scammer.
This is our concern
Just talking with him about what’s happened and why and what the loaned money is for might be enough
Great tip on flipping the focus (to the end of the loan rather than the start)..
whether his wife is aware of / party to whatever the problem is, and the solution to
This is where it gets tricky. He has a very strained relationship with his wife. He has told us that she's rinced his savings (he told us this a few months back), which is the original source of the issues. This may be true. We feel like it's unlikely they'll be together in 5 years time, but it's hard to be certain if the money problems are her honest doing (she's a business lady and may have made some bad investments) be her dishonest doing (rince him for everything before the split) Vs his doing
How has this been communicated so far, text or WhatsApp I guess? Is it definitely him i.e using your names/nicknames etc and general chit chat?
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already, but if you are the lender of last resort then I would also want to talk to those further up the chain to see if they have already been asked or have even been lent money. Nothing about this is sounding good and I wouldn't want to be lending the money unless I was also prepared to lose it (which for some close relatives I would be, but not for someone I rarely talk to)
Also, the fact that you are calling tomorrow to talk to him implies that the request didn't come by voice already. I can't imagine genuinely asking someone for that sort of sum without talking to them directly. Really doesn't sound great at the moment
You’re thinking of sending £5k to someone else’s bank account.
Who you don’t know.
We do know my fil and are calling him tomorrow to ensure it’s him
I think the point being made was that if your FiLs account has been locked, you'd perhaps be sending money to another person's account (e.g. FiLs wife) who you don't know...?
Remember also with AI it isn't too difficult to spoof someones voice in a phone message (not a conversation of course). What I've done before with transfers I've been unsure of is to transfer a small amount (50usd or so) with a specific message in the communication line and then got them to tell me the communication before transferring the balance. That way I am at least sure that they are in control of the receiving account.
I think the point being made was that if your FiLs account has been locked, you’d perhaps be sending money to another person’s account (e.g. FiLs wife) who you don’t know…?
I read that as the FIL's account in France was locked, but not the one where he was living now
How has this been communicated so far, text or WhatsApp I guess
All WhatsApp which is why we're calling tomorrow. The messages don't seem out of sorts, and Tbf he does know we're in a foreign country on holiday (timing could be better..), so that may be the reason. Even so, alarm bells are ringing loud and clear with me hence the thread.
if you are the lender of last resort then I would also want to talk to those further up the chain to see if they have already been asked or have even been lent money.
Good call, we'll try that
I wouldn’t want to be lending the money unless I was also prepared to lose it
We can afford to lose it, but we would rather not. The bigger thing is we don't want the money just thrown away, if he's being scammed. His pension should be (unless there's some way he's sold it, we'll find out tomorrow) such that he can pay us back in 2 or 3 months, but in a way that makes it even less likely he needs the cash.
I think the point being made was that if your FiLs account has been locked, you’d perhaps be sending money to another person’s account (e.g. FiLs wife) who you don’t know…?
Which would be even more insane!
I read that as the FIL’s account in France was locked, but not the one where he was living now
This just raised an interesting thought. Fil account in France is locked, we've been asked to send money to his wife's account in Algeria. The account details came through way to fast (like, message 3), so maybe she's got him in some way we hadn't realised. Will dig into that more to tomorrow
I had an acquaintance ask me for a loan of a grand. . Long story short after contacting a mutual friend i found out he had borrowed money all over the place and not paid it back. I said no obviously.
With regard to lending money, the question I ask myself is “would I be happy to give this as a gift?”
That serves two purposes.
First is that by framing it like that, if it doesn’t get repaid, then I’m ok with that because hey, it was a gift.
Second is that I need to know enough information that I’m happy where it’s going and what it’s going to be used for. After all, if I’m paying then I’ve got a right to know.
OP, if you give this money to your FiL you and your wife have every right to know exactly where it’s going, so that you can assess how likely you are to get it back. If your FiL isn’t happy with that, then it really is his problem, not yours. From the little information you’ve given, it doesn’t sound like he’s been the greatest parent to your wife anyway.
If you do decide to proceed i would be very firm in that this is all the spare money you have. Do not believe amy promised repayments with interest when a deal comes through.
I would also do a staged payment thing. With receipt of monies to a bank account or even PayPal that only he has access to. Not some random Algerian business women who is Clearly rubbish at business as they have no money in their 60s.
Your FIL should sell one of his own kidney.
I mean he has a wife there so how is he supposed to feed her etc if he needs to borrow money now.
It's a scam.
This just raised an interesting thought. Fil account in France is locked, we’ve been asked to send money to his wife’s account in Algeria. The account details came through way to fast (like, message 3),
That's not an interesting thought. That's a five alarm fire.
A, don't lend him the money.
B, warn the folks you do know who don't have a friendly internet forum full of folks to tell them not to send money to a random - doubtless previously unknown - account.
C, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...
D, think about, if you have the details, contacting his bank and telling them you think he may be the victim of a fraud.
"Dad, would it be better if we bought you a plane ticket to Marseille so you can go to the bank/social security and work this out once and for all?"
Having said that - banks are derisking at the moment and shutting accounts of customers based in dodgy places. Also, would he not have an Algerian bank account to which is pension is paid...?
My immediate thoughts,
1) Banks don't lock out accounts unless they have concerns. Why isn't he talking to the bank to resolve it? I've had my bank account frozen multiple times, I've called them and gone "yeah, I'm holiday" and they've replied "terribly sorry sir, give us about ten minutes and then try again."
One time I'd unknowingly dropped my card and they locked everything because they saw two transactions (card and phone) implausibly far apart geographically. That was actually fraud. They cancelled and reissued the card, re-enabled the account on the spot.
If he can't access his account then I'd hazard that either the bank think a fraud is imminent, the bank already believes there's been fraudulent activity, or it's a cover story and someone has already emptied it.
2) Who needs £5k to "tide them over"? I owe a couple of grand to a good friend but there were extenuating circumstances surrounding this. Giving money to tide someone over would raise the question "once they've been tided over and that money's run out, what happens in September?"
3) Why you? I borrowed money from a mate because he proactively offered when I told him my floor had fallen out and my car was bollocksed, I didn't go around cap-in-hand hitting up family and friends on spec for a five grand loan. Had he not been kind enough to go "yeah, I've got that" I would have, well, taken out a loan like everyone else does.
You need to have a conversation with them to get more information of course, there could be a crisis which makes it all plausible but 4) you already know that this stinks of a scam otherwise you wouldn't have started this thread.
With the information presented, the ONLY way I'd be saying yes is if I could afford to never see it again. And even then I'd be wary because if it is a scam then you'd be doing them more harm than good. Scammers know full well that they can ask for money if the mark is sitting there going "well, I've already given them £5k, another grand to finally make good is probably worth it" and the deeper they go the more desperate they get.
See also, weddings. I'm £10k out of pocket, what's another £500 for a bouquet or use-once throw cushions or some other shit. Have you seen the price of sugared almonds in a little bag?! Bastards, I hope their bollocks turn square and fester at the corners.
Who needs £5k to “tide them over”?
Especially as presumably if he’s pension age he has no rent / mortgage to pay and it doesn’t strike me as the highest cost of living…
it could be a scam where his what’s app account has been compromised (either to some dodgy unknown on the net or someone he knows out there), or he could be being manipulated by someone to send the messages, but one way of another I’d be 99% sure it’s a scam.
Quite.
I would like to think that... So, OK, I'm kinda terrible at stuff like keeping track of usernames on STW. I've had people post similar to "why do you have a vendetta against me?" and I'm thinking, I've never heard of you before in my life, what are you on about? But people that I know, I'm pretty shit hot at recognising their e-handwriting. I used to do it way back in programming classes at College, I could pick up a piece of code and usually tell you with a reasonable degree of confidence who'd written it. Or on the messaging system, someone pretending to be a girl as a wind-up, "bugger off Ste, I know that's you, no-one else puts a space -before- a comma."
So I'd like to think that if I suddenly started getting weird messages from someone close to me, I'd spot it pretty quickly. I was chatting to an old friend online a couple of nights ago and I knew almost instantly that something was 'off,' her phrasing and cadence, well, wasn't her. After a bit of prodding it transpired that she hadn't been hacked but she'd just found out that she was being scheduled for open heart surgery and was trying to pretend everything was normal when it wasn't. I could... "hear" it in the text, if that makes any sense? If I were to get a text from my mum going "hi it's your mum" I'd be immediately suspicious because that's not a sentence she's ever had cause to write in the history of ever.
So, OP: how does this "feel"? Are there shibboleths? Does it sound like him? Has his spelling suddenly changed, you / U et al?
... weirdly perhaps (Aspie brain alert) I'm far better at this with written language than vocal. If we'd been on the phone I'd likely not have noticed or, if I had, I'd have gone "what's up?" and she'd have said "nothing" and I'd have replied "oh, OK, just checking." Written, I knew something was out of phase.
It doesn't sound good at all, he's alluded to his wife previously draining his account or something a few months ago, now he needs 5k suddenly?
Personally I'd be shutting the conversation down there and asking him to get on a plane and sort his french bank account, and if that isn't possible then there isn't really an end game here and the 5k will only be the first of many.
get on a plane
Do they not have telephones in Algeria?
Or for that matter, banks?
the 5k will only be the first of many.
Quite.
I think that if you care sufficiently then you need to intervene, and that intervention likely isn't "sure, here's five grand."
He doesn't have an Algerian bank account - I think they're really hard to open if you're not Algerian, so he's always run his money out of his french account and just spent directly from there/xferred money into his wife's account for things like utilities.
He also owns no property so does have fairly high outgoings.5k does sound like a lot, but I wouldn't be surprised if he spends that over 2 months easily
Banks do lock accounts for anti money laundering reasons, which is more likely of you don't live where your account is. You get lots of warning but if you ignore those the account does get locked and is slow to unlock
We are sure the person we're dealing with it him, and a video chat later on the phone will make this certain.
I cant believe you're even giving this any thought having not talked to your FIL in person. Seems like a classic WhatsApp scam to me. But hell 5k isn't small change, this least he could have done was pick the phone up and ask / explain in person. Until I'd had that conversation, initiated by him it would be a flat no from me.
I cant believe you’re even giving this any thought having not talked to your FIL in person
We're talking to him today, but I started this thread to figure out some probing questions to ask during the conversation (it's been useful for that). We wouldn't pay anything without that, so I'm comfortable it's not us being defrauded, I'm just concerned he is
Why you
My wife had (when he started having money issues a few months ago) said we could lend him some cash if he got desperate (thinking it would never come to that). So maybe it's because of that? He was always very generous to her previously, so giving some of that back isn't the end of the world
He doesn't have a lot of friends in Algeria, he moved there when he retired a few years ago (having worked around the world all his life), so that may also be a reason as to 'why us'
Has his wife got hold of his phone and is trying it on with anyone who will listen. Contact anyone else he/she might be whatsapping that you might know.
When you speak to him on the phone, let him start the talking don't immediately batter him with facts. See if he is even aware of it.
£5k? How long is he expecting his bank account to be locked for?
Very good point. I woy have thought £5k GBP would go a long way in Algeria.
We wouldn’t pay anything without that, so I’m comfortable it’s not us being defrauded
If he is being and you do, you are.
Scams only work if the victim doesn't realise they're being scammed, if he doesn't how will you?
You're aware his wife has previously drained his savings, what are the flags you're going to spot that tell you it isn't just that again?
Even if he's absolutely not being scammed, you're about to send 5k to his wife, someone with whom he has a strained relationship and who has, in the passed, spent all his money (nefarious of otherwise) are you in anyway sure he'll even see £50 of it, let alone £5000?
[his Google] Cost of living in Algeria is estimated at $430 USD pp. allowing for inflation, decent lifestyle and exchange that 5k is probably a year of estimated living costs...
Nothing practical to add other than sympathy.
We've both got ageing parents and worry/have helped steer them away from spam emails and scam calls in the last few months. It seems, particularly my father, is just too trusting and doesn't react like he would have a few years ago. It's a genuine worry....
When i went to Algeria the currency situation was weird. We had to exchange money at the boarder. The exchange rate was artificially set by the government.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_dinar
It appears that Algeria still doesn’t have a freely traded currency
A quick giggle suggests Algeria is still a fairly cheap country. An online calculator suggests that they could both live in a nice hotel for 2 months for £5000
The bottom line is that your FIL represents a huge source of forgotten currency. Algerians probably can’t just buy foreign currency like we can
So I’d say all this points to a scam
Questions to ask
What specifically will this money be spent on? Ask for everything to be quantified
Ask about his assets and income. What is the balance in his various accounts. Is his pension still being paid
I think paying for a flight to Europe for him only would be a good outcome
With regard to lending money, the question I ask myself is “would I be happy to give this as a gift?”
This would be my ultimate starting point, can I afford to loose £5k ?If not I wouldnt even be taking conversations further/
and even harder (with my wife having a not-super-close relationship with him) to push him on the finer details of his situation.
I am sorry but if you are lending £5k ask what ever questions you like, its not as though you are lending £10.
You are kind of out of luck however you try and approach this as the French bank will not speak to you directly. All you could do is ask for the evidence from the Bank that they have blocked his account, ultimately though you would probably have no better idea than him whether the letter/email is real or not. You could find the real banks email address/telephone number and get him to contact whilst you are on the phone/facetime ?
And why is his bank account being blocked for so long? £5k would allow you to live for at least 2-3 months comfortably !?!?
This sounds like a scam all day long. I think the debate here is over complicating things.
Speak to your FIL
If he sounds genuine then give him a smaller amount to see him through a few weeks and then intervene to help him overcome the barriers to accessing his own money.
Is he even aware of the request?
Don't beat around the bush; ask him.
Banks don’t lock out accounts unless they have concerns. Why isn’t he talking to the bank to resolve it?
No idea about French banks, but a relative has had issues with dealing with SPanish banks before, where they expect everything to be done in person, (and sometimes at the bank branch that the account was originally opened at).
Therefore this
“Dad, would it be better if we bought you a plane ticket to Marseille so you can go to the bank/social security and work this out once and for all?”
Seems like a good idea.
Having said that this still sounds like either a scam, or at the least something that needs a full and frank conversation as others have mentioned.
Even if this is a legit request from the FIL, if his wife has previously “rinsed” him and they have a strained relationship then to just transfer the £5k directly into [i]her[/i] account is madness, surely?
What specifically will this money be spent on? Ask for everything to be quantified
That's a point. If it turns out that he needs a new car / roof / orangery or whatever, and you wanted to help, you could buy that for him directly rather than handing over the ready cash.
As I said before, £5k is a wedge to need just to "tide them over," if they're living beyond their means then it'll run out and then what happens? I borrowed from a mate but there were demonstrable reasons for it, someone did a hit & run on my car right before it was due to be returned and neither replacement floors nor vet bills are particularly cheap. It wasn't for ongoing C&H costs.
The wife is a complication I hadn't considered. However you slice that, unless they're estranged you're dealing with them as a couple. If you jump through hoops to give him money rather than her, there's little to stop her from going "honey..." after the fact if she's got previous. The more I think about this, the more I think that the real issue is that the wife has run out of designer handbags and having cleaned him out she's making a start on people he knows.
... which is another point and a question worth asking. Who else has he approached for money? Several lots of £5k into her bank account is a whole other world of red flags.
even harder (with my wife having a not-super-close relationship with him) to push him on the finer details of his situation.
You're giving - let's stop labouring under this 'lending' notion - someone five grand who you aren't particularly close with?
This is the tricky thing.. we don’t want to come across as not believing/trusting him, but our concern is he may be being scammed..
That's not tricky at all. You don't trust him. And he'd have to be a complete idiot to be surprised that you may have questions before writing a cheque. If that's not the case then you're right, it is a scam, only the mark isn't him, it's you.
Get one thing straight. You aren't "lending" him £5k. You are *giving* him £5k. Or not. Your call, but either way that's what it is.