Restricting someone's access to credit
Discussion
Secondary login created to hide personal details as I'm a long term member. Happy for mods to move this to a more appropriate forum if necessary.
My sister is mentally ill (long term self esteem issues and depression) and is very bad with money. She is unhappy with her life (blames everyone else for this, particularly our parents), and feels she has never been appreciated etc.
It turns out that over the last few months she has discovered online some sort of astrology/tarot based cult in the US and has been indoctrinated. They started by collecting details about her (financial situation, personal issues) and then reflect them back at her. Her compliance was initially tested in low key ways e.g. she must always wear white clothes, and have her room lit by candles when talking to them - which she does for 8 hours during the night (US time). This then progressed to her giving them money - £80 per day initially, then it ramped up to £200 and now it seems it is at £280 per day. They have convinced her that all her life's dreams are just around the corner - coming into a lot of money, meeting the man of her dreams, having a great career, travelling the world and being appreciated by all as she spreads happiness and goodness around her. All this will come to her - if she just keeps paying the daily stipend.
It's got to the point that she has maxed out all of the credit cards to feed this addiction, and is now turning to family (and probably friends) to "lend" her the money. She has taken money from her children, and is contacting family with "urgent" need for £280 to be transferred to her account for "very important reasons". When questioned she will use all the standard guilt transference techniques such as "Isn't my happiness worth £280 to you? Are you saying that this small amount of money is more important to you than my life?" and so on.
We have only just become aware of the state this has got to. No idea how much they have tapped her for so far, but we think it's in excess of £15,000 - money she doesn't have and now she's resorted to scratching around anywhere to get her daily fix. Obviously, the first thing to do is to limit her access to credit.
Question 1 - is there any way we (her family) can get her registered as a vulnerable person and stop her getting any more credit cards or payday loans?
Question 2 - does anyone have any experience of organisations that can help us to get her de-programmed.
She is fully indoctrinated so will not be a willing participant to these actions. She is very secretive about the cult and we have only found out the above through careful investigation. How much can we help her, if she doesn't want to be helped? She still owns a car and a house, we are concerned that she will start selling things to keep feeding the beast.
My sister is mentally ill (long term self esteem issues and depression) and is very bad with money. She is unhappy with her life (blames everyone else for this, particularly our parents), and feels she has never been appreciated etc.
It turns out that over the last few months she has discovered online some sort of astrology/tarot based cult in the US and has been indoctrinated. They started by collecting details about her (financial situation, personal issues) and then reflect them back at her. Her compliance was initially tested in low key ways e.g. she must always wear white clothes, and have her room lit by candles when talking to them - which she does for 8 hours during the night (US time). This then progressed to her giving them money - £80 per day initially, then it ramped up to £200 and now it seems it is at £280 per day. They have convinced her that all her life's dreams are just around the corner - coming into a lot of money, meeting the man of her dreams, having a great career, travelling the world and being appreciated by all as she spreads happiness and goodness around her. All this will come to her - if she just keeps paying the daily stipend.
It's got to the point that she has maxed out all of the credit cards to feed this addiction, and is now turning to family (and probably friends) to "lend" her the money. She has taken money from her children, and is contacting family with "urgent" need for £280 to be transferred to her account for "very important reasons". When questioned she will use all the standard guilt transference techniques such as "Isn't my happiness worth £280 to you? Are you saying that this small amount of money is more important to you than my life?" and so on.
We have only just become aware of the state this has got to. No idea how much they have tapped her for so far, but we think it's in excess of £15,000 - money she doesn't have and now she's resorted to scratching around anywhere to get her daily fix. Obviously, the first thing to do is to limit her access to credit.
Question 1 - is there any way we (her family) can get her registered as a vulnerable person and stop her getting any more credit cards or payday loans?
Question 2 - does anyone have any experience of organisations that can help us to get her de-programmed.
She is fully indoctrinated so will not be a willing participant to these actions. She is very secretive about the cult and we have only found out the above through careful investigation. How much can we help her, if she doesn't want to be helped? She still owns a car and a house, we are concerned that she will start selling things to keep feeding the beast.
Sounds like a terrible situation for your family member to be in, I am not aware of any services that allow you to class someone as a vulnerable person and as such cut off their access to credit, taking it to an extreme you would be looking at a sectioning under the mental health act but on the face of it, it does not sound appropriate or even realistic.
It sounds like she has built an addiction to the cult in the same way a person can become addicted to any number of things such as gambling or smoking at a more basic level.
There are organisations set up to help people who are involved in Cults, google "Cult Information Centre" and that may be a starter for 10, please be aware I have no idea if that's a good organisation or not, it was the first one I found. I know that in other circumstances such as people radicalised by far right groups or Extremist Islamic groups for example there is such a thing as an intervention provider who works with those people, to discuss their beliefs over a long period and explain why or how they may be wrong and point them in another direction instead but you need to find a reputable organisation who can properly advise.
The issue of course will be that if she doesn't want the help herself it probably won't work.
All the best with it
It sounds like she has built an addiction to the cult in the same way a person can become addicted to any number of things such as gambling or smoking at a more basic level.
There are organisations set up to help people who are involved in Cults, google "Cult Information Centre" and that may be a starter for 10, please be aware I have no idea if that's a good organisation or not, it was the first one I found. I know that in other circumstances such as people radicalised by far right groups or Extremist Islamic groups for example there is such a thing as an intervention provider who works with those people, to discuss their beliefs over a long period and explain why or how they may be wrong and point them in another direction instead but you need to find a reputable organisation who can properly advise.
The issue of course will be that if she doesn't want the help herself it probably won't work.
All the best with it
The word 'sectioning' comes to mind. I think this can go one of two ways; either it is possible by recourse to law to have her financial affairs taken over (see sectioning), or you warn everyone not to get involved, keep your distance and let her go bankrupt.
Religion preys on vulnerability and exploits it for its own ends, unfortunately.
Religion preys on vulnerability and exploits it for its own ends, unfortunately.
Mental Health Act ("sectioning") almost certainly a non-starter and, in any event, contains no automatic powers to allow for financial affairs to be taken over by others.
Look more into Court of Protection and, specifically, "undue influence". However, for CoP, it must be the case that capacity is assessed formally as lacking but could be worth a look
Look more into Court of Protection and, specifically, "undue influence". However, for CoP, it must be the case that capacity is assessed formally as lacking but could be worth a look
Sympathies, it sounds like a nightmare.
If she is deemed mentally competent and refuses help etc then I think you're pretty stuck.
Beyond giving her moral support and advice guidance I think options are very limited.
As someone else said she will probably go bankrupt sadly. It will be a painful lesson.
Thinking out loud though could you cut off the internet or install some surreptitious blocking on her router etc
Do you know full details of the site and who she is talking with?
There are some clever web savvy investigative cyber people on here who might have ideas based on what the website/setup looks like.
I have no idea of your resources financial or otherwise but a lot is possible if you have enough to throw at it.
Could you anonymously? report details to her bank/credit card providers etc and say she is being scammed.
They then have some duty of care to help protect a vulnerable client? Worth a shot.
They might be on the hook for the funds if you have warned them she is being groomed/defrauded/scammed whatever.
How is she passing money to them? Paypal? Western union? Bank Transfer?
Do you know people in the US who might be able to assist?
If she is deemed mentally competent and refuses help etc then I think you're pretty stuck.
Beyond giving her moral support and advice guidance I think options are very limited.
As someone else said she will probably go bankrupt sadly. It will be a painful lesson.
Thinking out loud though could you cut off the internet or install some surreptitious blocking on her router etc
Do you know full details of the site and who she is talking with?
There are some clever web savvy investigative cyber people on here who might have ideas based on what the website/setup looks like.
I have no idea of your resources financial or otherwise but a lot is possible if you have enough to throw at it.
Could you anonymously? report details to her bank/credit card providers etc and say she is being scammed.
They then have some duty of care to help protect a vulnerable client? Worth a shot.
They might be on the hook for the funds if you have warned them she is being groomed/defrauded/scammed whatever.
How is she passing money to them? Paypal? Western union? Bank Transfer?
Do you know people in the US who might be able to assist?
Edited by peterperkins on Saturday 27th June 17:04
We've been doing a bit more digging and the scam is a series of astrological-oriented websites from which you buy "reports" which give you insights into particular aspects of your life that you ask for. The reports gradually ramp up in cost, of course. So it's not so much a single cult but a belief system. It's basically like a high dependency drug addict; she is now looking for the next source of money to get her "fix" of future lifestyle portents. You simply go on the websites, fill in details that you want guidance on, make payment (credit/debit card) and then you get emailed back an auto generated report with key words injected and a load of astrological mumbo jumbo.
We need to get this behaviour managed because currently as far as we can tell the cost is limited to what she had easy access to in the form of income, savings and credit cards, and these are now exhausted. However she has other assets of significant value (house & car) which we definitely don't want her to liquidate not least because she has 3 children (youngest is 13).
Restricting internet access would be an option but it needs to be done in a way without her knowing. In terms of questions about our resources, that is not an issue. We can cover the debt (as we have done for her in the past, for other ill-advised financial commitments she has made) but obviously we want to contain the debt, and fix the problem.
Her problems stem from unhappiness with her life (there is no root cause for this unhappiness apart from her belief that no-one has ever supported her, no-one appreciates her i.e. it's everyone else's fault but hers) and she is searching for reasons why and someone to blame. She blames our mother, but apparently one of these websites told her this was because our mother was cursed 40 years ago but part of the curse deflected and fell onto my sister!
It now seems that part of this behaviour has addictive traits so as well as the financial options we're looking into ways we can help with this - the trouble being that she doesn't want our help, we don't understand because we're not on the same astral enlightenment or something.
Desperately sad, she's needed a lot of help from the family over the years to prevent some of the worse consequences of her decisions, unfortunately these charlatans have got their teeth right into her.
We need to get this behaviour managed because currently as far as we can tell the cost is limited to what she had easy access to in the form of income, savings and credit cards, and these are now exhausted. However she has other assets of significant value (house & car) which we definitely don't want her to liquidate not least because she has 3 children (youngest is 13).
Restricting internet access would be an option but it needs to be done in a way without her knowing. In terms of questions about our resources, that is not an issue. We can cover the debt (as we have done for her in the past, for other ill-advised financial commitments she has made) but obviously we want to contain the debt, and fix the problem.
Her problems stem from unhappiness with her life (there is no root cause for this unhappiness apart from her belief that no-one has ever supported her, no-one appreciates her i.e. it's everyone else's fault but hers) and she is searching for reasons why and someone to blame. She blames our mother, but apparently one of these websites told her this was because our mother was cursed 40 years ago but part of the curse deflected and fell onto my sister!
It now seems that part of this behaviour has addictive traits so as well as the financial options we're looking into ways we can help with this - the trouble being that she doesn't want our help, we don't understand because we're not on the same astral enlightenment or something.
Desperately sad, she's needed a lot of help from the family over the years to prevent some of the worse consequences of her decisions, unfortunately these charlatans have got their teeth right into her.
Yes, there is a husband who is basically carrying the rest of the family and we're communicating with him to try and help. More information overnight and it does seem as if my sister is indoctrinated by a particular organisation who elevate you through 5 stages of awareness...they have told her she is "amazing" because she has reached level 3 so quickly. This is the positive reinforcement of her belief that she is special that she craves....guess how you progress through these levels? That's right, you transfer them "energy" in the form of money. It all sounds incredibly similar to Scientology, just with an astrological angle and without the lizards.
What is her husband doing while she is spending all this time with the internet? Surely he has some culpability here? Has he not cut off the supply of money from joint accounts?
Whose name is the house in? She cannot secure money against if it's in joint names unless he signs too.
And it sounds like getting social services involved might be necessary eventually.
Whose name is the house in? She cannot secure money against if it's in joint names unless he signs too.
And it sounds like getting social services involved might be necessary eventually.
gifdy said:
Can you log into her wifi hub and get hold of her phone to block just their websites ?She may not realize and think they are no longer available. Rest of internet would work fine.
anyone with half a mind would try 4G cellphone surely? Never underestimate the resourcefulness of addicted people.She needs de programming. Given she must be aware of her mental health, can she be convinced of this? Unfortunately mental healthcare is such that proper help is rarely avaliable until its too late.
I wouldn't advise doing anything not legal but if you're worried about her borrowing, would it help in the interim if her credit rating was somehow adversely affected? Take a logbook loan against the car purely to block her doing do?
Tyre Smoke said:
What is her husband doing while she is spending all this time with the internet? Surely he has some culpability here? Has he not cut off the supply of money from joint accounts?
Whose name is the house in? She cannot secure money against if it's in joint names unless he signs too.
And it sounds like getting social services involved might be necessary eventually.
Her access to joint money is controlled, as far as possible. But it's like living with a high dependency drug addict - they are very good at hiding things and sourcing money to get their "fix". In my sister's case she has exhausted all immediate money available to her which is why it has come to light. Applying for credit in her own name is not difficult. I suspect there are more maxed out credit cards/facilities that we do not know about.Whose name is the house in? She cannot secure money against if it's in joint names unless he signs too.
And it sounds like getting social services involved might be necessary eventually.
Social services will not be necessary as the husband and the rest of my sister's family are stepping up. It's preventing my sister from getting into more debt, and attempting to get her de-programmed for her long term health that are the key issues. Things have escalated over the weekend (she wants a divorce because her husband "isn't supporting her by not giving her money") so she is likely to end up penniless, homeless and cut off from her family. We have evidence of quite how far she has bought into this astrological/numerology nonsense, she really seems to genuinely believe in it. And "they" (my sister and the organisation that are leaching her) have decided that we are all negative energies that need to be removed from her life in order for her to reach the next stages of astral elevation. I would say you couldn't make it up, except that someone obviously has.
If i were you i would look at registering your sister with the vulnerability registration service if she hasnt already. The VRS is designed to protect vulnerable individuals and can do this with a refer or decline flag currently. Not every loan/credit provider uses this at the moment but they should be and hopefully going forward the majority of them will.
Marlin45 said:
Julia121 said:
We can't just take it on ourselves to tamper with other people's services because we think we are doing the right thing. So far all we have is OP's sister asking OP for gambling money.
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