Published on 12, July, 2020
My son who is 26 years old with high-functioning autism has been a victim of an online scam where scammers offer him a very high salary, allowance, company car and accommodation to produce music record labels for him. Since March 2024, he has been paying the fraudsters a few thousand US dollars for various things such as artist ID card, delivery charges, registration fee for artist conference, etc., etc. Although we reported it to the Police (Action Fraud for cyber crime), he denies that he is being scammed and refused to receive help. This has been going on for 4 months and as his savings is depleted, he is getting frustrated but still refuses to talk about it with the Police, his therapist or his parents. He has been living with us and has no real concept about money, no need to pay rent or buy food and every penny he earns from temporary jobs is kept in his account. We don't know how he would survive once he realises that he would never get his money back. The care and attention the scammers give him could be what he is craving for. He screamed and cried a few days ago, out of frustration, but still would not open himself up to anyone. I cannot find a support group for online scam victims and need help on this. Once he knows that he is not alone, he may be willing to tell others about his situation.
Hopefully he opens up about it, so that something can finally be done about it. Your son giving away thousands of dollars to fraudsters every month is not a good sign. Hopefully they can track the account that he's sending the money to. There's probably a lot more victims out there.
My friend was scammed in a pyramid scheme, and that included her family and friends. There was a guest speaker that visited her house, and a bunch of people there (including me), as the audience. I was completely engaged, until the guest speaker mentioned that "this isn't a pyramid scheme" and laughed about it, making the audience laugh as well. But a cog in my mind haulted, and I wondered... But what if this is a pyramid scheme? And then I was completely disenchanted after that thought, and got bored. The only other person who was bored, was a little boy, because a conference with grown ups might not be so fun for him, so I was just making him giggle and laugh to pass the time. My friend who worshipped this guest speaker like a goddess, didn't like what I was doing, and abruptly stopped us. She'd fetch water for the goddess. She'd offer food for the goddess. But when it came down to us, nothing. She thought I was being so rude by ignoring the goddess and playing with the little boy. I was still open to the idea of the business, but ended up feeling disgruntled by the whole thing when I left.
A year later, she messaged me saying sorry, and that her entire family was scammed on account of her, and she feels very miserable about it. She remembers that I was the only one who wasn't enchanted by the idea of that business, and I suppose she wished she would have had similar levels of skepticism, instead of completely believing and falling for such a thing.
I really hope your son says something to the police, so something could be done about it.