Everyone visited me this year with the nearly one year old. Traveling with my wife, who struggles with the physical demands of going to an airport and getting in a plane, is hard enough. Doing it with the baby sounds miserable, but I hear about people doing it all the time
Itâs a payment processing company. Having had some exposure to the inner workings of that business I can say that itâs a huge grift with outrageous economics, which means paying his lower paid office staff 75k wasnât a huge problem economically. Not something you could get away with as a large publicly traded companies CEO (if EPS doesnât go up by what the analysts say for three non consecutive quarters youâre for sure fired) but definitely not a difficult lift for a mid sized private company.
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Thinking about getting a new iphone.
https://twitter.com/bizarre_content/status/1607744086701903873?s=46&t=13vLe_OrauwyitXsVfDRwA
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Nobody is perfect. 
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Grandparents come to us for Christmas, but weâll travel for Thanksgiving, at least for now. Itâs not just managing the kids, but all their stuff thatâs really taxing. Traveling for Christmas just balloons the amount of stuff you have to both take and take back. Itâs too much.
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Lawyer question. My future MIL is probably being scammed by someone. She apparently invested $60k in some sketchy word of mouth thing, with no contract or attorney advice whatsoever. Seriously.
What kind of attorney do we even look for to start the process of recouping this money, personal finance? Investment attorney? Iâve already told her to document every communication and transfer of money and not to talk to the person again until she speaks with an attorney. Any other relevant advice?
I would probably start with s complaint to the securities regulator and see where that goes.
Even if itâs a random investment that surely isnât documented?
What exactly happened? If someone held out an investment offering with no license, no paperwork, none of whatâs required, then I think your only options are to call the cops, call a random lawyer, or go straight to the securities regulator. My guess (and IANAL and I live in socialist paradise Ontario) is that the securities regulator is the one set up to directly receive investor complaints. Does your regulator have a contact page like this:
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I initially thought that the CFPB would be a good place to go, but I know think this falls outside of their jurisdiction.
This is probably not helpful, but it could be a start:
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Thanks that helps.
We donât know for sure that itâs a scam, other than being pretty confident that high quality investments arenât usually offered to retired women renting out their basement on AirBNB. She sent the money several times through separate payments by stuff like Zelle, Venmo, etc.
She has had minor contact with the person, but it sounds like itâs mostly phone calls so itâs undocumented. Apparently she was promised 1% of this company but obviously it isnât in writing. She gets updates like âyea purchase orders are being filled soonâ but nothing substantive (and it doesnât help that she doesnât know the right questions to ask). She was supposed to get her first dividend in December but that came and went with more excuses.
She hid it from my partner (her daughter) because she probably knew weâd get pissed off. She definitely does not have $60k to lose and is now missing mortgage payments because of this. 99% chance the money is gone but weâre hoping to claw some of it back.
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I didnât want to say this, but Iâm glad you know it. Actually obtaining a judgement against someone like this and collecting on it is just incredibly rare. And in doing so, youâd spend a big chunk of whatever youâd get back. Iâm sorry, it really sucks.
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Thanks SC, that helps as well. Didnât think of the elder protection angle or the FTC complaint option that CFPB noted.
Mosdef, your advice led us to NY stateâs Investor Protection Bureauâs page and will get her a referral to an attorney or legal clinic.
Any other advice is welcome. Super shitty situation.
Id be using forums like reddit to learn how to create some kind of social donation site that would primarily function as a way to create awareness of the scammers.
I wouldnât be surprise if that led to other ideas and ways to recoup the money. Maybe you can find one of these youtube detectives to make a video documentary of the process of you trying to help her. That, imo, would be worth at least $60K to the public.
For those who dont already, show your elderly friends and relatives those scambaiting youtubes. Let them know firsthand what these guys are really doing and how
Thus is more like a plain vanilla scam than an investment scam. They just lied to her so that sheâd transfer them money. Certainly the bad guys committed securities violations but I would just report to the police and to the financial institutions involved in the transfers.
I mean this is definitely a scam. In the US there need to be contracts, disclosures, tax information (k-1?), etc. She would need to be a qualified investor, etc.
A lawyer probably wonât be able to get the money back and may cost more than whatâs been lost. I donât know if Iâd contact them and demand the money backâthe FBI may want to run sting or whatever and may not want you to contact the scammers. Thatâs very concerning about your MIL. Any signs of dementia, or is she just unsophisticated in the modern world?
Iâd call the FBI (wire fraud, securities fraud), appear with your future MIL, and ask them who to contact. Pretty sure the FBI is the best play, because theyâll refer you to the SEC or whoever if they are not.
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RIP, the end of an era. I typically didnât care what showed up in the mail as a 10-18 year old, but I was giddy when the Eastbay catalog showed up.
I didnât realize they have been owned by Foot Locker since '97, which also owns Champs Sports. Also that Foot Locker Inc is the successor company to Woolworths
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Need some unstuck medical advice. @CaffeineNeeded perhaps
My dad is 81 and recovering from the flu. He just had a bout of uncontrollable chills so bad he asked me to come get him and take him to the VA Medical Center ER. When I got to his place, he had massive brain fog and was hard to communicate with.
15 minutes later, when we got to the ER, he was feeling much better, and was completely coherent. He didnât want to fight the ER insanity and sickness, and I canât say I blame him.
So I took him back home. I just talked to him and he sounded fine and said he feels fine. Iâm scheduled to fly back to LA at 7am tomorrow.
Is a massive short burst of extreme chills with brain fog a thing that can happen to olds from time to time? No one I know has ever heard of that. Should I push my flight back a few days just to be safe?
No one can say without seeing him, but rigors are a very real thing and would make me concerned. How you play it is up to you and how you feel about it. Sounds like he popped a fever and it broke. Beyond that, could be nothing, could be something.