Ask Lemmy

@laranis@lemmy.zip what about check out the registration of that company at Taiwan with official site? https://gcis.nat.gov.tw/mainNew/

You are to be applauded for watching out and caring for your father - I”m sorry for both of your loss of your dear mother and I know, you are hurting as much as he is…

You will have to tread carefully, depending upon his level of dementia -since he firmly believes this scam and will not respond well to being told he’s wrong and trying to convince him

The best approach will be to gather some solid empirical evidence on paper - do your research on everything you can get about the company - look at the company website suspiciously (source code) - everything you can find with her name, her phone number, the company address (on Google maps) etc…

be sure to do this research anywhere other than social media, everything on social media will support her story/lies - It will take some work, but will be worth it for when you talk to him

Once you have the evidence in hand and are ready to talk with your father, began by telling him how much you love him and care for him and will do anything to protect him - make sure it’s all about him and not money -

Then you can show him the evidence and help ease his way to understanding-

This is all a part of his grieving the loss of his life partner, and trying to ease his own pain

I wish you well in taking care of your father, please DM me and tell me how it went

(Source: an elderly man who went through much of the same with his elderly father)

fwiw sometimes the people playing the "bait" are themselves victims of human trafficking. If they don't bring in enough money, they are forced into prostitution. source.

Lots of good info already, so I'll just leave a look to a good podcast episode on pig butchering scams.

https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/141/

You should start asking for money. Just $50 see what happens.

I've seen this scam a lot on Tinder.

I'm not sure what the goal really is, but it is most definitely a scam. At some point, they will ask for his identity to be verified through a PAID SERVICE. The scam is either to get people using the service or is to get your credit card info through a phony service site; IDK beyond that, as the moment they had asked for that shit I block and report them and I've come to recognize the bullshit before it gets that far now.

It can be days, weeks, even MONTHS before they actually ask you to spend money. That's what makes these scams so fucked up; they often seem like genuine people for a long period of time before suddenly switching gears.

A lot of the comments are about the scam and not about what you should do to help your father.

Make him aware that it's a "romance scam" and that this was set up from the beginning for money. Tell him what to expect and hopefully when this person finally starts with the money requests he will remember what you said and understand for himself what is happening.

Second, the biggest concern would be his inability to get out of the situation and feeling pressured in the moment to give an answer or send money. I don't specifically have a recommendation for how he can avoid this, but generally it's best if people have their own transportation and can leave at any time.

Also, I would stay in touch with him frequently. He is interacting with this person. Talk on the phone several times a day. It's going to be impossible for him to walk away unless you can help him.

Edit: typo

Hand off the information to Kitboga so he can make some videos about it.

LA is relatively close to the Mexican border.

Nobody's interested in a 72 year old's organs.

I'd be most worried that it's a kidnapping for ransom, since seniors generally have savings and retirement assets, since they'd be alone with strangers in unknown territory.

These scams can get fairly complex. Sometimes they even employ models to video chat to make the whole thing seem legitimate.

Sometimes these are people who are trapped inside of a compound where they can't leave unless they scam enough victims.

Jim Browning gives us a behind the scenes view on how these work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu-Y1h9rTUs

Skipping ahead to 4 minutes will show how they typically use the call/text by "accident" method.

Another good video here by Pleasant Green: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS1ge8-31IY

There is a 0.001% chance this isn't a scam. Make sure he doesn't give money and has backup plans of what he would do in LA if this is a scam. If you are going to LA anyway then meeting someone can make it more enjoyable. If it doesn't work out (either a scam or real but the don't click) he can enjoy his backup plan. I want to visit the USS Iowa there someday as one example of something to fill a day. I assure you there is more and I've not even been there

If it's none of the above could be a marriage / immigration thing. Met a dude once who had married like six times. Would find needy women with money, woo them, divorce them and then collect.

Hey OP, don't know if you've seen this because it just came out today, but it's another deep dive into the world of pig-butchering scams. As soon as I read it I thought of your post:

Trafficked, beaten and raped: raids reveal scale of abuse of women in Asia’s cyberscam centres -- The Guardian, June 29, 2026

If your dad really is the target of a pig-butchering scam, it's likely that any woman on the other end of this is not doing it by choice but living in horrific, brutal conditions, unable to leave, and of course will never see any of the money he sends. As others have said, the scammers will hire models, or even use other trafficking victims, to do any video or photo proofs required. There is no upside.

I don't know if this kind of argument would reach him, but I'm giving you the link just in case you can ever use it: the lives of these women trafficked into this kind of scam work are beyond horrible, and the faster you can educate your dad on the reality of it, the better. Also, it might help if you could arrange for him to see this thread: there is a lot of power in seeing almost a hundred comments all saying the exact same thing. Best wishes to you both.

Or... Hear me out. Maybe, just maybe this lonely, beautiful, youthful 40 something CEO, who can't dial a phone number really IS in love with your 72 year old dad. I mean stranger things have happened. Either way, this could be fun.

You know... Just a thought.

Your dad is a horny dog trying to date someone over 30 years younger than him.

Your Dad's a moron and probably a "whale" in scammer databases.

I'm sorry to hear that your extremely stupid father is about to lose the family a lot of money that could have gone toward important things because he's too stupid to set his loneliness aside for 5 seconds and look up this very common scam. My condolences.

Whoever's downvoting me wants your family to become worse off than it is.