“My mom was victimized,” Kelly says, “but it affected the whole family.”

Gone are the retirement investments her mother carefully accrued over several decades, along with funds her mother had earmarked for her family’s future: down payments on homes for her children and college tuition for her grandchildren. “On top of everything, my mother may have to sell her house to cover the tax debt,” says Kelly, a New York City costume designer who’s had to spend hundreds of hours reporting the scam and looking for ways to recover the stolen money.

The Kelly family is not alone. In a 2023 Gallup poll, 15 percent of Americans said a household member had been deceived into giving money or financial information to a scammer over the previous 12 months—far more than those who had their car stolen or home burglarized, or who endured a mugging. The impact on spouses, children and other family members can be profound but is often ignored, says criminologist Katalin Parti, an associate professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

“When a loved one is scammed, family members are often the secondary victims,” says Parti, who is studying the experiences of scam victims and their relatives. “You go through a process that’s emotionally taxing. You may lose emotional or physical connection to your loved one. You may feel alone and isolated. You may have to take care of your parent like never before. And you may lose money if you’re now supporting them or loaned them money that was stolen by scammers.”

The scam involving Kelly’s mother began the day Kelly arrived for a visit last July. “She picked us up at the airport and seemed nervous,” Kelly says. “She almost hit a pedestrian and another car, so I took over.” Then Kelly and her mother came down with COVID and isolated in separate rooms. Her mother, a retired social worker, seemed secretive, but Kelly thought she was doing paperwork related to setting up services for foster children. “She was retired, but still doing trainings,” Kelly says.

In reality, a team of criminals were calling her every day, impersonating computer-company workers, an investment-company officer and even a U.S. marshal. The calls sometimes lasted two to three hours. The scammers convinced her that her investment account had been hacked to buy child pornography. They instructed her to protect the rest of her money by transferring it to her bank account, using the funds to buy gold, packing it in a shoebox and handing it over. She did so, even when one bank manager refused the transfer and a gold store employee warned her it could be a scam. “She was liquidating her investment account while I was in the next room,” Kelly says. “She was told she would get a certified check from the government and an IRS letter forgiving her tax burden and that her money was going to the Federal Reserve.” Instead, it vanished.

When Kelly found out what had been happening, she felt devastated and wondered what clues she’d missed that could have helped her end the criminal abuse of her mother.

“My mom has lived by herself for a long time,” she says. “We talk or text each other every day. But she thought she was protecting me by keeping it from me.”

Despite contacting federal and state agencies, as well as the bank and investment company where her mother had accounts for decades, the money has not been recovered. “We have to change the system,” Kelly says. “People have to be held accountable, but there is so much shame around reporting scams.”

Other families have endured similar trauma.

As his mother underwent tests in a Florida hospital for esophageal cancer in early 2022, Rory Macleod and his sister checked her laptop and phone.

“Suddenly we were in charge of her household, her business as a therapist, even her dog,” says Macleod, who lives in Croatia. They noticed odd receipts for wire transfers and gold bars. Then a message popped up on her phone that seemed suspicious. Scrolling down, they saw references to a $137,000 payment and a man who seemed to be her boyfriend. “My mother was dying and we suddenly went down this rabbit hole,” Macleod says.

Eventually, Macleod figured out that his mother had been the victim of three romance scams over eight years, and that at least $800,000 had been stolen from her. If his mother needed extended, round-the-clock care at home, Macleod says, she no longer had savings to pay for it.

Macleod decided not to confront his mother in the last weeks of her life. But piecing together details of the scam took away his precious time with her.

“The scam robbed my sister and me of the ability to say a proper goodbye to our mother,” he says. “Because of all her secrecy and the confusion about what was happening, we weren’t able to sit with her in her final days and have genuine conversations or reflect on her life. We had to dance around certain topics, and there was an air of distrust between us. I was also spending the bulk of my days talking with lawyers and photocopying documents, when I should have been sitting on the sofa next to her, holding her hand and telling her that I loved her.”

Afterward, Macleod worked to understand his mother’s experience and his own feelings through an online AARP fraud victim support group and extensive interviews with his mother’s acquaintances and fraud professionals. “My perspective began to change,” Macleod says. “I realized my mother wasn’t at fault. She didn’t ‘lose’ money—it was stolen from her. In fraud, the weapon of choice is emotions. What she did was selfless.”

For some families, a relative’s scam can alter the future—negating a victim’s promises to help children or grandchildren buy a home or pay for college, and leaving their ability to pay their own way in retirement on shaky ground. “Scammers are stealing from multiple generations in some cases,” says Stacey Wood, a professor of psychology at Scripps College in Claremont, California.

Adult children may postpone their own retirement, forgive or pay off debt incurred by the scam victim, cover living expenses or invite their family member to move in, says Kim Casci-Palangio, program director for FightCybercrime.org’s Romance Scam Recovery Group.

“But some family members have nothing to give. They themselves may be financially struggling. Or family members will give everything they have to help the victim, and then they themselves are in trouble financially,” she says. “It can be a real mess.”

The losses add to the emotions family members may feel after a relative has been scammed. Often overlooked, the reactions can get bottled up—or explode into anger. One in 5 scam victims age 60 and older report relationship problems with friends or family as a result, according to a March 2024 paper in the National Institute of Justice Journal. In her own research, Parti has found that relatives are often reluctant to be interviewed about a family member’s scam—despite assurances of confidentiality—“because it’s so painful and shameful.”

That can toss a wrench into a dialogue with your relatives. “Nobody is talking about it openly,” Parti says. “That’s why most scams involving older people are never reported. We have to break the silence.”

Joining a scam-victim support group or talking with a family therapist can help family members process their own feelings in any situation after a loved one has fallen victim to a scam, anti-fraud professionals told AARP.

“Family members, not just victims, need help and support when working through this terrible situation,” says Jen Lawrence, lead program counselor for FightCybercrime.org’s Romance Scam Recovery Group. “It’s important for family members to acknowledge their own anger, frustration or sadness without blaming the victim,” Lawrence says.

Reporting the fraud and taking steps to protect your loved one’s credit and financial accounts are important steps. But seizing control and taking away their independence could damage your relationship—or shut down communications. Understanding your own emotions and assumptions can help make this potentially difficult conversation easier, Parti says.