In December 2023, Julien A. told us the worrying story of his mother: Catherine, 73 years old at the time, had been under the influence of a grazer for several months. A year later, the situation is at a standstill. “She still talks to this person and unfortunately continues to send him money,” confides her son. Catherine continues to hope to see her virtual lover arrive. “She was convinced that he was going to come for New Year’s Eve. As usual, he pushed back the deadline by three months. He always has a pigeon who pays, it’s logical that he continues,” Julien despairs.
He had cut ties with his mother at the end of 2023. He has not reconnected since. “This situation had become too heavy for me. Wanting to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped requires a lot of energy and I didn’t have any left,” he explains. Her brother and sister, who are in regular contact with her mother, continue to inform her.
Catherine had gone into debt to send money to her scammer who claims to be an American soldier. At the end of 2023, it already accumulated “between 40,000 and 50,000 euros of debt”. One year later, the damage is estimated at between 70,000 and 80,000 euros. “She is in an over-indebtedness plan. She receives a pension of 3,600 euros but she repays 3,200 euros of debt each month,” says Julien. Ruined, Catherine is hosted by a family friend. “My mother also borrowed money from him,” says her son.
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TESTIMONIALS. “It’s like a sect… It’s under the influence”: in love with a “grazer”, victims recount the scam
“Like trying to help someone leave a cult”
Julien is now considering requesting guardianship for his mother. “I am currently looking for legal advice to help us because the procedures are complex,” he explains. He says he regrets finding himself “completely alone” to face this situation. “I have the impression that there is no communication between justice, the police and the banks on these subjects,” he believes.
Trying to analyze the nightmare in which his mother is plunged, he points out a “discomfort, a loneliness” in certain people with high responsibilities, which makes them more likely to “let themselves be fooled”. He did not imagine that Catherine, a former senior civil servant, divorced for 30 years, would be fooled. According to him, these people prefer to “project themselves into an unreality” to escape their daily lives. “We talk about young people who live virtually on social networks but our elders have the same problem. It is perhaps even worse for them, given that they were not born with these technologies. They have even more hard to get rid of,” he theorizes.
Despite the evidence amassed by her children, who discovered that the person in the profile picture used by the scammer was actually dead, Catherine refuses to accept the truth. “She assures us that she saw her grazer on video, but when we ask to speak to him, the scammer always has an excuse, says Julien. When the brain has decided to believe it, we can believe everything that is false. C It’s like trying to help a person leave a cult! No matter what you say, you’re lying.” He always hopes to make “the trigger” in his mother to save her from this infernal spiral.
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