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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/LucyAriaRose on 2025-04-20 04:03:51+00:00.

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is Fugglesmcgee. He posted in r/Scams and r/Thailand

Thank you so much to the person who recommended this- for some reason reddit isn’t showing me your message anymore so I don’t have your name! Please dm me if it was you and you want credit.

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. Latest update is over 7 days old. This is a long post.

Mood Spoiler: frustrating and sad

Original Post: February 26, 2025

Mother-in-law lives in Laos a developing country in Asia, I was born there too, but left when I was 10 months. MIL had fallen victim to romance scams in the past, but “only” losing maybe 2-5k USD. We knew she had in the past 6 months fallen for another romance scam, but didn’t think it was “serious”.

My wife has in the past 4 years completely renovated her mother’s house, new backyard, new additions to the house, even left her still relatively new car for her mother. My wife also sends her mom about $700 USD a month for expenses, the same amount she sends to her father, and he says it’s more than enough. MIL is not cash rich, but has access to properties.

We would then hear things like how MIL is very frugal, lives like a destitute person. MIL would constantly be asking my wife for advances in her allowance. Then we would hear from others that MIL told people that we have never sent her any money at all not even $1; in an attempt to convince that person to lend her money. Then we start getting calls from village elders and family members that MIL is trying to pawn properties for loans, some successfully. She has no intentions of paying these loans, for the papers we could get, they take the property after 6 months of backed payments. MIL thinks she will be living in the US by the time the loans are due, and her great lover will pay off the loans. She’s been able to pawn things that aren’t even in her name.

She has pawned in the past month, Jewelry 10k, 4 acre plot 12k (real value 50k), scooters, 1K, rental advance from a business property she owns 1/6 of 20k, my wife’s car 3k (real value 15k). The roughly 50k she received from the loans, she’s already given away to the scammers.

She has also attempted to sell, but were stopped by officials, another 4 acre plot 18k (real value 100k), her own house in the capital, right in the central business district 100k (real value 500k), her 1/6 plot for family business property 50k (real value 250k).

My wife’s family is not used to confrontations, I think it’s actually a cultural thing. So despite everyone knowing what needs to be done, no one is leading. So I guess I am. In 3 weeks, we will be landing in Laos. I will lead an intervention, around 10 people, victim impact statements, etc. I got my sister-in-law, and MIL ex husband to talk to the officials to make sure the second farm plot, own house and family business can not be sold, as the village officials have to sign off on it.

We will pay off the car loan, and then sell the car. We can not get back the plot of land, without MIL helping, as she has the loan papers, and these loan people are shysters, so unless MIL is convince she has been scammed, that plot is gone. If MIL comes to her senses, we will use the car money, and put in our money funds to buy back the land. We stopped sending MIL money last month, we pay her utility bills directly, and pay sister-in-law to buy groceries to put in her fridge. Issue with the house she’s trying to sell is…2 of her daughters, and quite often 1 or 2 grandkids also live here. Losing the house will not just affect the MIL.

If you’ve read this far, holy…thank you. I need help with this intervention, I’ve never even done one before and need some guidance. We plan on taking her smart phone and replacing with one of those brick Nokias.

I am expecting the intervention to last 5-6 hours, also thinking of not letting her leave the house even for days or weeks until she gets it. IF she doesn’t wake up and realize what’s happening and pawns the house she lives in, we will not help. I will not put up 130k for this batshit crazy lady and risk my own family’s financial future. So this intervention, as serious as it may get, has to work or we will be cutting MIL completely from our life.

I guess what I am asking is…for those who have successfully got then family members to realize they were scammed…what did it? How were you successful? How was the process like for someone this deep in?

Edit: My wife just approached me with a solution that her sister looked into. I think we’re going to check MIL into an mental health addiction clinic, a hospital referred us to them. We have spoken with police who will take her to the clinic. Curious what people here think of this solution.

Some of OOP’s Comments:

Top Comment:

RacerX200: Unfortunately, it usually takes them running out of money. They want to believe what they are being told is true so bad, convincing them otherwise is almost impossible.

On YouTube there’s a channel called catfished. Maybe you can contact them and have them show that it’s a scam.

OOP: Yes, sad as it is…if this intervention doesn’t work, we’re out, my wife agrees. She’s even sold my wife’s jewelry and replaced them with fakes. Wife feels constantly betrayed.

Commenter: Bit of a cultural point. If your wife was raised in Lao culture, cutting off her mother would be basically impossible for her. It’s one of the gravest sins in their culture, no matter what the parent does.

I don’t know her nor your relationship, but I would be highly skeptical about her alleged agreement to “we’re out”. She might have agreed to make you happy, avoid conflict and move things along, but don’t count on that happening so easily in the way an American would imagine

OOP: Yeah you’re right. If it came down to it, the kids and grandkids kids have places to go. She doesn’t. My wife would probably get a rental and pay someone to fill it with groceries.

Commenter: It’s very likely that even if you seem to get through to her, if you pay off anything, then she’ll go right back and sell it again to give more to the scammer.

We see this story time again here. The intervention or ultimatum seems to work, but very quickly they go back to the scammer again. 

You need to make sure to protect the house so her kids have a place to live.

OOP: Here’s what’s more messed up. The house actually was the family house of her ex husband’s parents. They divorced but he agreed to not split the house or have his name on the deed because he said his kids and grand children are living there, and he was happy his kids and grandkids could use it. FIL is a cool dude, no one blames him for leaving.

Update Post: March 29, 2025 (1 month later)

I never thought there’d be a part 2, because I didn’t think there would be a point - but here goes. So the first few days we arrive in Laos, my mother-in-law is nowhere to be seen. On day 3 we get one of her friends to ask her to meet up casually. She says she can’t, she’s in another city for a funeral of her friend. We then figure she’s hiding out in her country farm house an hour away. So now it’s harder to get a lot of people in my planned intervention. Still, 6 people pack a van. Her brothers, her daughters (including my wife), and me. We head out.

We park and one of her daughters approaches the farm house. She calls out her mom, and her mom answers and tells us to go away. We surround the farm house and everything is locked. We keep telling her that we just want to talk, but will break down the doors if she doesn’t unlock the doors. MIL refuses to answer. There are 2 doors inside, one is “boarded” up and impossible to get through, the other we use a crowbar to wedge ovep the door. We get through the lock, but this women has also used coat hangers wrapped around the door knob attached to something to keep us out. So now we spend 10 minutes getting through that.

We go through the house, and she’s locked in the bedroom. So now we start to crowbar this door. As we do so, she’s screaming that we’re coming to kill her…great. We get in, and she’s an absolute mess, hair all over the place, just general unkempt.

Her older brother tries to talk to her, really really calm. Like good guy, being nice - calm. He gets a punch from her. She’s also a heavy set women, probably hurt a little, even if she’s elderly. So I sit down, and I totally think I got this. Right? I’ve seen some screenshots of her phone that people have managed to take and was able to piece the possible story. So I lay it out to her, common enough romance scam. Scammer sends her something, get stuck at customs, she sends money, but it’s still stuck. Then story escalates to scammer coming to visit her, then is arrested and needs bail. Now it’s her fault, and she needs to send money to bail him out. It’s okay though, when he’s out, he will pay whatever cost she incurred, and they’ll fly away to another country and live happily ever after.

I spend 3…

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