'Romance Fraud Scammer Killed My Mum' | This Morning

[Music] it's an all too familiar tale a person meets the partner of their dreams online only for that partner to scam them out of thousands of pounds yes for 76 year old elaine chamberlain her scammer brainwashed her into believing that they would get married so he could steal her life savings before she died leaving her with just 120 pounds in the bank and the wedding dress that she had hoped to wear elaine's son richard joins us to share his heartbreaking story with the hope that it will serve as a warning to everybody um your your mum elaine lost her partner of 31 years dany in 2013. so obviously you know you there's loneliness and later in life and reaching out and trying to find someone to fill part of that sort of that gap um what was she like as a person my mom was a very outgoing person she liked to be life and soul of the party like to make people laugh and very caring yeah a very caring person so it was september 2019 that your mum actually told your wife didn't she that she was talking to someone and kind of getting to know someone what what did she say and your wife sort of kept that from you didn't she because you were going away and i don't think she probably knew that you were gonna feel a certain way about it i mean yeah she she kept it away from me till we got back off holiday and then she let me know and mixed feelings yeah my mom's been alone for a while but happy for her as well of course so you went round um and you're talking to her what point did alarm bells start to ring for you uh it's when she said she'd met online and obviously you hear about how people do get scammed uh and i said i'm quite happy with you uh who's who is this person uh where's he from how old is he and she told me and who did she say he was she told me his name was mark and he was a diver from america i said okay that's great um but i just need to ask you a question mom you're not sending any money are you what did she say to that of course not i wouldn't be that silly at what point did you realize that because you you heard the guy's voice and you thought this doesn't sound like the man that she's painting yeah well i went round to see my mom and uh she had a phone call while i was there and i heard the voice on the phone and i said to my mom that's that's not an american gentleman that's somebody completely different and that's by the accent what what sort of accent it was it was a deep african right accent so not not the voice the man that she had described to you so i suppose at that point your alarm bells must considering you had a funny feeling i suppose at that point what do you do what do i do i have to just take a step back from the situation and then i had to address the situation with my mom and say mom this is not the person that you believe on the photos that you've shown me and that's hard that's a hard conversation to have right if she's already falling or perhaps already fell that's that's that's a really hard subject to broach isn't it now i know that so fast forward to october 2020 the post office that your mum would go and deposit cash but she told you at this point that she wasn't right correct yes yeah so what happens is the post office where she was depositing cash contacted south yorkshire police because they'd seen unusual activity that's right yeah and i suppose this is when you must really start to panic oh yeah yeah it was alarm bells was ringing immensely um the post office we went to see the post offices and this told us of out of duty of care that contacted south yorkshire police uh because my mum was making large amounts uh deposits of money to addresses uh and they had a duty of care to contact them uh and some of them were in this country yes there was yeah yeah so you did and you re i read your story this morning i thought you know what can you do what more can you yeah you um got involved with her finances you're obviously speaking to her you took power of attorney she then took that back that's right uh so that you've lost control of her finances she was in control of her finances and her mind although they had as you say allegedly brainwashed her you had to back off didn't you for your own mental health i did yeah i got to such a low point in my life it was affecting my family life with with my wife and my son uh and i had to i had to take a step back uh because i just couldn't cope with the situation no matter how much i'd spoke to my mom and how much time i spent speaking to doctors and authorities and getting people to come out and see yeah i mean it was it was bad at the time because we had the the covered pandemic yeah real grim uh so is it it was hard to get people to come out and see mama and get them on board well she cancelled her carer um the financial reason said i can't afford that anymore and obviously we now know why um her health started to decline you saw you spoke to her and then went round and saw her just before she died i did yeah and what sort of condition was she she wasn't in a very uh good state of health uh she was just sat there in a night dress her home was in a particularly bad state as well no tidying up for being done pots unwashed uh and i sat with her and had a chat with her for a couple of hours and it was just like talking to a blank canvas it wasn't it wasn't my mom and with having the conversation with her uh she never had a drink while i was there now my mom loves a cup of tea or a coffee and in the time i was there she'd never had a drink so they'd essentially appeared stolen everything she was as a person she utterly committed to them her health then failed she was rushed to hospitals where she died from multiple organ failure you got back to her house after that and was so sorry about that and you got back to her house and as proof of how much they must have been hounding her yeah when you got back into her house pretty much within two minutes they were on the on the phone there was yes within a few minutes of walking to my mom's house her phone was ringing and i picked the phone up and it was a facetime call so i answered the call and there was an african gentleman on the other end of the phone asking for elaine and i said elaine's not here um i said elaine's dead and he said to me elaine's dead i says yes that says you guys have killed her uh and i just cut the phone off so the the police can't do anything couldn't do anything because she willingly gave the money the tragedy of this is that you then walk into her bedroom and you find a wedding dress which she had bought for her wedding to this guy and you don't believe it was one guy you believe it was a number of people and a picture of her in the wedding dress that she'd sent to them yeah it was that was absolutely devastating to find that yeah there was a like a suit jacket hung up and i opened it up and inside was a wedding dress that she'd bought my mum really believed that this guy was going to come over and marry her and some pair of wedding rings as well just absolutely and under photo inside as well of her in the wedding dress in the garden that she'd obviously sent to him i'm so sorry so so sorry um well as we said you you were so caring and so thoughtful um and diligent what what more could anyone do what is your your message to to anyone watching now when you see what happened to your 76 year old mum what do you say if it's happening to your parents whether it be your mom or your dad just look out for the telltale signs just help them as much as you can try and get authorities on the side and just try to convince them if you do find out that they're sending money just try and get as much help as possible yeah to stop this happening because these people that are doing this it's it's a daytime job to them they don't care what happens to people or families they're just there for the greed of the money utterly ruthless and heartless and after you had that phone call with them did the phone ring again no no never again they'll have moved on to the next victim won't they it's just utterly utterly heartbreaking i'm so sorry i hope richard that um you being here today has maybe made some people aware of maybe that something that they've got involved in or they're aware of something that their parents or friends may have got involved in that's the best you can do because i really don't believe that as a son you could have done much more absolutely i know i i believe i did my best maybe backing from authorities a little bit more when you need the help yeah uh but if anybody's going through what i'm going through out there just do your best delve into be alert be alert thank you thank you thank you very much

Channel: This Morning

Views: 113,491

Keywords: this morning, this morning itv, holly willoughby, phillip schofield, this morning funniest moments, this morning interviews, alison hammond, itv

Id: TXFfSHB6LnU

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Tue May 10 2022