When Mr Chris Mancinelli walked into his father’s home for the first time after the 79-year-old man died last summer, he stopped to look at family photos displayed on the refrigerator door. Near a crayon drawing spelling out “grandpa” in rainbow colours were photos of his father’s three granddaughters at a swimming pool.
But one image jumped out: a photo of Alexa Bliss, a professional wrestling personality.
Mr Mancinelli’s father, Alfred, was completely smitten with the star – or at least with the con artist impersonating her.
He was convinced he was in a romantic relationship with Bliss, leading him to give up about US$1 million (S$1.3 million) in retirement savings (and his granddaughter’s college fund) to the impostor and a varied cast of online fraudsters he had interacted with over several years.
When Mr Mancinelli tried to intervene, moving his father’s last US$100,000 to a safe account, Alfred sued him; his loyalty was to “Lexi”.
“There was nothing we could do to convince him,” said Mr Mancinelli, 47, a chemical engineer in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. An eldercare specialist deemed Mr Alfred Mancinelli “really sharp”, he said, but lacking purpose.
Mr Chris Mancinelli and others who have tried to awaken their loved ones from this trance often feel powerless, even after they have done everything to shatter the fiction and protect their assets. They say it was as if their parent had been brainwashed into a cult.
In some ways, they were: These victims were slowly groomed by con artists posing as love interests, investment advisers or government officials, among others. Once ensconced inside this bubble, they are unable or unwilling to acknowledge that they have become victims – even when their own children are warning them of the con.
“Romance scams are the most pernicious,” said Mr Darius Kingsley, head of consumer banking practices at JPMorgan Chase. Some victims have become confrontational after being told that their wires were not going to lovers, but were being used for nefarious purposes.
“They don’t believe it,” Mr Kingsley added, which means banks may need to shut down their accounts if the behaviour continues.
Americans lost an estimated US$12.5 billion to online criminals in 2023, according to the the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre, including US$652 million in losses tied to romance and confidence scams. Many more go unreported.
Technology has put just about everyone in scammers’ cross hairs, but older Americans are disproportionately targeted for some of the costliest cons, often because they are perceived to have more money, to have less familiarity with technology and to be potentially experiencing cognitive decline. Still, fully competent people fall for scams too.
“For many people, what is going on is, they are looking to fulfil an unmet need for companionship, an unmet need for financial security, an unmet need for a purpose,” said Assistant Professor Marti DeLiema, an interdisciplinary gerontologist at the University of Minnesota’s School of Social Work, who researches financial fraud and exploitation.
Victims are often caught up in fantasies created by perpetrators, isolating them from their real-life existence and families.
This was what happened with Mr Alfred Mancinelli, who had already endured tragic losses in his life. He and his wife lost their first child to leukaemia when she was three; then, he lost his wife when their boys were nine and 14, raising them largely on his own. Later, he was forced into early retirement from his position as an electronic technician for Con Ed, the New York power company.
Mr Chris Mancinelli said his father had “opened his heart” to some of his scammers, which may have played into how he was manipulated.
Before the Bliss impostor, Mr Alfred Mancinelli sent money to someone called “Kate”, who said she had a sick four-year-old daughter. He also sent money to “Anna”, who was helping a friend caring for unwell children.
“I believe they crafted stories that pulled on those heartstrings,” the younger Mr Mancinelli said.
Mr Alfred Mancinelli’s involvement in scams dated back to 2018 but worsened during the isolating days of the Covid-19 pandemic. By the spring of 2021, his once US$900,000 nest egg had dropped to US$128,000. Mr Chris Mancinelli estimates that most of his father’s money went to one or more Bliss impostors – her persona is frequently used in scams – and what seemed to be a satellite of associates.
His chat messages with the sham Bliss read like a soap opera. There were the battles with his son, whom he disowned after Mr Chris Mancinelli tried to safeguard his money; other “evil” meddlers trying to spoil their relationship; and ongoing references to Vince McMahon, the former wrestling promoter, whom the fake Bliss accused of humiliating her after she refused his advances.
But Mr Alfred Mancinelli was always there, ready to extend emotional and financial support.
The Bliss impersonator often claimed to be hospitalised for bad menstrual periods and would plead with Mr Alfred Mancinelli to send money so the hospital could begin treating her. “Tell me how much do you have left, baby,” the impostor said in a chat.
Although the scammers refused to chat with the elder Mr Mancinelli using audio or video, they occasionally reached through the screen, sending him trinkets in the mail and even pizza delivery for his birthday.
Mr Chris Mancinelli sought help from an eldercare manager and a therapist, and he cleaned up his father’s Google account (which was connected to two devices with Nigerian IP addresses). He set up a trust and a financial plan to help his father manage his expenses.
When that did not go far enough, he pursued the nuclear option: He took away his father’s last US$100,000, putting it in another account.
Blocked from sending money to a purportedly ailing Bliss, Mr Alfred Mancinelli became enraged. That was when he sued his son, in February 2023. He wanted his money back, plus interest and legal fees.
At that point, Mr Chris Mancinelli asked himself: “Why am I in federal court trying to help my dad? Why don’t I just let it go to zero?”
A month after he returned the money, it was gone.
“If he didn’t pass, he would have kept going,” said Mr Mancinelli, who found documents indicating that his father may have been getting ready to sell his home. His father had also taken out personal loans using his car and televisions as collateral.
Although Mr Alfred Mancinelli passed cognitive tests, he had became a little more reclusive, his son said. There were also some minor car accidents that he did not want to talk about.
“It’s really hard for us to accept that there was not some unseen mental decline, since the behaviour seemed so out of character with the man we knew growing up,” the younger Mr Mancinelli said.
Older people may also be more susceptible to the mind games that scammers are so adept at playing – using fear, creating a sense of urgency or even stirring up excitement over the prospects of a new romance or investment opportunity.
The goal is to tip victims into a heightened state of emotion where they are no longer thinking rationally but reacting to those appeals, researchers at the Stanford Centre on Longevity, the Finra Investor Education Foundation and the AARP Fraud Watch Network found.
“They are looking for the victim’s emotional Achilles heel,” said Mr Doug Shadel, managing director for Fraud Prevention Strategies, a consulting firm in Seattle, and a former state director for AARP Washington.
Back in March, Mr Nick J., a 38-year-old software engineer in New York, went to San Jose, California, to see his father for his 80th birthday.
During his visit, he witnessed his father’s deep involvement with an investment scheme offered through a woman who claimed to be from South Korea. His father was up early one morning, laser-focused on real-time chats and charts tracking the gold spot market. The next day, Nick learnt that the trading platform his father was using was a hoax.
“Everything was in motion, giving him the idea he was placing trades,” Nick said. “He was up at odd hours of the night and day because he was speaking with people in Asia.”
His father was convinced his account had grown to US$5 million. But the next day, he could not pull any of his money out. (To protect his father’s identity, The New York Times is using only Nick’s first name.)
In the end, his father wired away nearly all of his savings as well as some borrowed money – close to US$1 million.
Mr Chris Mancinelli never had the opportunity to reconcile with his father, Alfred, who died after he failed to recover from the neck surgery he needed after a fall.
“He lost all his money, his family relationships and was constantly stressed through it trying to get more and more money for them,” Mr Mancinelli said. “I loved him. I wanted a close relationship with him, but it ruined it.” NYTIMES