What happened when you got scammed by your own family?
Theft and Paranoia
That evening, I noticed something odd when I got home. The doormat outside my apartment was slightly askew, and there were faint scratches around the lock that I hadn’t seen before.
My heart raced as I carefully opened the door, checking each room with my phone, ready to dial 911. Nothing seemed missing, but small things were out of place. My mail had been rifled through, and my desk drawers weren’t quite closed properly.
I went to the building’s management office immediately. The security footage showed a figure in a hoodie trying different keys at my door around 2 p.m., eventually giving up and leaving.
The build quality wasn’t good enough to see their face clearly, but I knew exactly who it was. The manager suggested I file a police report and offered to change my locks for free.
I spent that night at a hotel, too anxious to stay in my apartment. The next morning, I returned with a locksmith and had a deadbolt installed along with a chain lock.
I also ordered security cameras online, paying extra for next day delivery. While waiting for them to arrive, I went to every neighbor on my floor, showing them a photo of Trent and asking them to call me if they saw him around.
The cameras arrived as promised, and I spent Saturday afternoon installing them. One faced the hallway, another covered my door, and I put a third inside pointing at the entrance.
I downloaded the app that let me monitor them remotely and tested the motion detection alerts. Everything was working perfectly when my landlord called that evening.
“Hey, just wanted to give you a heads up,” he said. “Your parents stopped by today claiming they needed to do a wellness check. Said you’d been acting strangely and they were worried. I told them I couldn’t let them in without your permission.”
I thanked him profusely and asked him to call the police if they showed up again. He agreed, mentioning that they’d seemed pushy and made him uncomfortable.
After hanging up, I checked my camera footage. Sure enough, there they were at 3 p.m., my mother crying dramatically while my father demanded entry. They’d spent 20 minutes harassing my landlord before finally leaving.
Monday morning brought a new nightmare. I was reviewing my credit report when I discovered three credit cards I’d never opened, all maxed out.
The applications had been submitted two weeks ago, right when my family was running their Colombia scam. The addresses were all slightly different versions of my apartment number, close enough to pass initial verification, but different enough that I’d never received the cards.
I spent hours on the phone with each credit card company explaining the situation and filing fraud reports. They required police reports for each incident, so I headed to the station with a folder full of documentation.
The officer who took my report seemed sympathetic but warned me that identity theft cases within families were notoriously difficult to prosecute. Over the next few days, I discovered more fraudulent accounts: a personal loan for $5,000, a store credit card, even an attempt to open a checking account in my name.
Each discovery meant more phone calls, more paperwork, more police reports. My credit score plummeted from 750 to 480 in a matter of weeks. I had to put my plans to buy a car on hold indefinitely.
The situation at work deteriorated quickly. Tuesday afternoon, my manager pulled me aside. “Your parents were here again today,” she said quietly.
“They made quite a scene in the lobby, claiming you’d abandoned them in their time of need. Security had to escort them out.” She showed me security footage on her computer.
My mother was wailing about how I’d left them to suffer while my father shouted about ungrateful children. Several clients in the lobby looked disturbed by the display.
My manager suggested I work from home for a while until things calmed down. I gratefully accepted, packing up my desk that afternoon.
Working from home should have made me feel safer, but it only heightened my paranoia. Every noise in the hallway made me check my security cameras.
I kept the chain lock on even when I was inside. I ordered groceries for delivery rather than leaving the apartment. My world was shrinking, all because of my toxic family.
A week into my remote work arrangement, my friend Catherine called. We’d gone to high school together and still kept in touch.
“I ran into your brother at the gas station.”
“She said he was asking all sorts of questions about you: where you lived, where you worked, if you were dating anyone. I told him I didn’t know anything, but I wanted to warn you.”
I thanked her and made a mental note to warn my other friends. Trent was clearly trying to gather information, probably looking for new ways to exploit me.
I posted on social media warning my friends and acquaintances not to share any personal information about me with my family members. The responses were eye-opening.
Several people messaged me privately, sharing that Trent had contacted them with sad stories about needing to reach me for a family emergency. He’d even offered some of them money for my new address.
Thankfully, none of them had fallen for it, but it showed how desperate he was becoming. Through another mutual friend, I learned the truth about what Trent had been doing.
He’d never left the country at all. He’d been living at home the entire time, dealing substances out of our parents’ apartment.
The money he made went straight to online gambling sites where he’d lost thousands. My parents knew about everything, but kept enabling him, even taking out loans they couldn’t afford to cover his debts.
The friend, Nathan, worked at a bank and had seen my parents’ loan applications. “They’re in debt,” he told me over coffee. “Multiple personal loans, credit cards maxed out, even a second mortgage on the apartment. They listed you as a reference on several applications, claiming you were willing to help with payments.”
I immediately contacted each lender to clarify that I had not agreed to any such thing. Some were understanding, others were skeptical.
I had to provide documentation proving I’d been estranged from my family for years. It was exhausting, but necessary to protect myself from further financial entanglement.
My security cameras proved their worth. Two weeks later, I was reviewing the footage from while I was sleeping when I noticed movement at 3:00 a.m.
Trent had been in my hallway, examining my door and windows. He’d spent almost an hour casing my apartment, even trying to peek through the peephole.
The footage was clear enough to identify him definitively. I took the footage to the police and filed another report.
The officer suggested I consider a restraining order, but warned that it might escalate the situation. I decided to wait and see if the increased security would be enough to deter him.
I also shared the footage with building management, who promised to ban him from the property. The next few weeks were relatively quiet.
I continued working from home, slowly disputing all the fraudulent accounts and rebuilding my credit. I’d hired a lawyer to help with the identity theft case, though she warned me that prosecution was unlikely without more concrete evidence.
I kept all my documentation organized, hoping something would eventually stick.
