Someone Online Is Draining Your Parent's Savings. What Can You Actually Do?

In a single week this summer, our office received two separate calls that told the same story. A concerned niece made the first one. A granddaughter made the second. In both families, an older relative had met someone online. The photos showed a young, attractive person. The messages were warm, attentive, and constant. And now, weeks or months later, money was leaving the account by wire, by gift card, and by cryptocurrency kiosk, headed somewhere no one could name.

Both callers asked the same question: we want to step in, so how do we do that?

The honest answer is one of the hardest things we explain, and one of the most important. This article walks through what is really happening, what California law lets a family do today, where the legal lines sit, and the preparation that decides how this story ends for your family next time.

Why smart, capable people fall for romance scams

The first thing to let go of is the idea that this only happens to foolish people. It does not. Romance scams are run by organized, professional operations that work from scripts refined on thousands of victims. They study loneliness the way an actuary studies risk. Americans over 60 reported almost 4.9 billion dollars in fraud losses to the FBI in 2024 alone, and the bureau itself believes the real number is far higher, because embarrassment keeps most victims silent.

The pattern is remarkably consistent:

• The approach. A friend request, a dating profile match, or a wrong number text that turns into conversation. The photos are stolen and the person is often not on the same continent.
• The wall of attention. Good morning messages every day. Long calls. Questions about your life that no one else has asked in years. Researchers call it love bombing, and against loneliness it works.
• The reasons they can never meet. A military deployment, an oil rig, an overseas contract, a medical emergency. Always vivid, always verifiable sounding, never true.
• The first small ask. Gift cards for a phone plan. A small transfer to bridge a payday. It is a test, and paying it marks the account as open.
• The escalation. A customs fee to release an inheritance. A crypto investment that shows fake gains. An emergency only your loved one can solve. By this stage victims are often coached to hide the relationship from family, and to distrust anyone who questions it.

Understanding the script matters because it changes the conversation you are about to have. Your parent has not been stupid. They have been targeted by professionals, and they are likely being actively coached against you right now.

What you can do today, while your parent is competent

California law starts from a principle most families only discover in moments like this one: every adult is presumed to have the capacity to make their own decisions, including decisions the rest of the family believes are terrible. That presumption protects all of us from being overruled by relatives who disagree with how we spend our money. It also means that while your parent has legal capacity, you cannot freeze their accounts, block their transfers, or take over their finances, no matter how obvious the scam looks from the outside.

What you can do is real, and it is worth doing today:

• Have the conversation without shame. Do not open with the word scam. Open with curiosity and concern. Ask to learn about the new friend. Suggest a video call together, or a reverse image search of the photos as a way to celebrate the relationship rather than attack it. Shame drives the relationship underground, and the scammer is already coaching your parent to expect your objections.
• Bring in the bank. Any family member can alert the fraud department at your parent's bank or brokerage to suspicious outgoing activity. California banks and financial professionals are mandated reporters of suspected elder financial abuse, and brokerage firms can place a temporary hold on suspicious disbursements while they investigate. The bank can act in ways you legally cannot.
• Report it. In Los Angeles County, Adult Protective Services takes reports 24 hours a day at (877) 477-3646, and a report is confidential and does not strip anyone of their independence. Report the fraud itself to the FBI at ic3.gov and to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov. If money moved recently, ask the bank about recalling the wire the same day, because recovery windows are short.
• Suggest guardrails your parent controls. A credit freeze at the three bureaus, a trusted contact form at every financial institution, and transaction alerts to a second phone are all protections a competent adult can choose for themselves. Framed as protection against strangers rather than supervision by family, many people say yes.
• Preserve the evidence. Screenshots of profiles and messages, receipts, wire confirmations, and dates. If this ever becomes a criminal referral, a civil elder abuse claim, or a capacity proceeding, the record you kept quietly will matter.

For the full step by step version of this list, use our free California Family Scam Response Plan. It is written to be printed and shared at a kitchen table.

Where the legal line sits, and when it moves

Everything above respects your parent's autonomy. The law offers stronger tools only when one of two things becomes true.

If your parent loses capacity

Capacity is not all or nothing, and it rarely announces itself. But when illness, injury, or cognitive decline reaches the point where a person can no longer understand and appreciate their financial decisions, the documents they signed while well begin to work:

• A durable power of attorney lets the agent they chose step in and manage accounts, stop payments, and deal with institutions, without any court involvement.
• A revocable living trust with clear incapacity provisions lets the successor trustee take over trust assets the moment the trust's own test of incapacity is met, often on the certification of one or two physicians, privately and immediately.

If those documents were never signed, the family's remaining path is a conservatorship: a public court proceeding to take away some of a person's rights and hand them to someone else. It works, and in a true emergency California courts can appoint a temporary conservator on a compressed timeline to stop the bleeding. But it is slower, more expensive, more adversarial, and more painful than any of the alternatives your parent could have signed in an afternoon. Our overview of conservatorship alternatives is exactly where a worried family should start, and our article on avoiding a conservatorship before it is too late explains the timing.

If someone exercised undue influence or abused a position of trust

California law defines financial elder abuse broadly. Welfare and Institutions Code section 15610.30 covers taking or retaining the property of anyone 65 or older by fraud or undue influence, and the law provides real civil remedies, including attorney fees in appropriate cases, along with criminal exposure for the abuser under Penal Code section 368. Where an overseas romance scammer is usually beyond practical reach, these tools matter enormously when the influence is closer to home: a new companion who became a caregiver, a helper who became a joint account holder, or anyone who used access and trust to move money their way.

The part nobody wants to hear, and the part that helps

Here is the sentence we say gently on these calls: if your parent is competent, you may not be able to stop this one. That is painful, and it is also not the end of the story. Because the same week that teaches a family how little control they have is the week to change what happens next time, for your parent and for you.

Estate planning cannot stop a competent person from making a bad financial decision. What it does is prepare for the day when someone is no longer able to protect themselves:

• A durable power of attorney becomes critical the day capacity slips, and it only exists if it was signed while your parent was well.
• A revocable living trust lets a successor trustee step in when the trust terms permit, without a courtroom.
• Regular plan reviews create a natural, recurring, dignified moment to talk about financial safety, beneficiary changes, and trusted contacts, years before anything is wrong.
• Naming trusted fiduciaries today means someone is already in place, already authorized, and already known to the bank if your parent later becomes vulnerable.

That is the whole idea behind the campaign this article belongs to: fraud prevention starts with awareness, and estate planning starts with preparation. Awareness protects your family today. Preparation protects it on the day awareness is no longer enough. Our guide to the Fraud Ready Estate Plan walks through all five safeguards, with a printable worksheet for naming trusted contacts and fiduciaries.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every family's circumstances are unique, and the information reflects California law as of 2026. Attorney Advertising. Contact MVP Law Group for guidance tailored to your family.