My father has been scammed of his life savings

pphillips

barbarawright wrote: »

I'm not sure the OP will be able to act on her father's behalf that easily. GDPR may well mean that the company doesn't have to deal with her and indeed can't deal with her...

Can get round that either with her father providing consent or with a power of attorney

onomatopoeia99

pphillips wrote: »

Can get round that either with her father providing consent or with a power of attorney

The opening post paints the father as "vulnerable" and by implication not having the capacity to make decisions, since she is questioning why the bank didn't second guess and block his spending.



If the OP believes her father lacks capacity, she would have to go to the court of protection and apply to become a deputy, as he needs to have capacity to give consent to a power of attorney, or to her dealing with the bank on his behalf.


And if the OP truly believes he lacks capacity to even make decisions about playing a lottery, why has she left him as carer to her mother?

pphillips

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

The opening post paints the father as "vulnerable" and by implication not having the capacity to make decisions, since she is questioning why the bank didn't second guess and block his spending.



If the OP believes her father lacks capacity, she would have to go to the court of protection and apply to become a deputy, as he needs to have capacity to give consent to a power of attorney, or to her dealing with the bank on his behalf.


And if the OP truly believes he lacks capacity to even make decisions about playing a lottery, why has she left him as carer to her mother?

The OP does not indicate that the father has lost mental capacity, just that he is vulnerable and there is not a power of attorney in place.

The law presumes that the father has capacity unless it can be established that he does not. Just because he has made unwise decisions, it does not necessarily follow that he has lacks capacity to make those decisions.

pinkteapot

OP - if it was this company that your dad paid all the money to:
https://www.thelotterycentre.com/en/home/about/

(make absolutely sure that's the right one), then edit your original post to include 'The Lottery Centre' in the post title and in your post (correct it from 'National Lottery Centre'). That way, anyone Googling about this company in the future will find your thread.

If it's not that company then find out exactly who it is and post the details here.

If it is the above, or another 'legitimate' company (in the loosest sense of the term) then your first port of call is their complaints process. Gather together any written correspondence your dad has (email or post?). If no joy there, any Ombudsman and media such as Watchdog.

The advice on here will differ if he's been given the hard sell to hand money over to a company, or if he's been targeted by scammers (no legitimate company, money didn't buy what they said it would, etc).

Stoke

One thing I would say, as someone who knows very little but enough..... time of is the essence. Don't hang around for a few weeks while you deliberate over semantics in your e-mail. Get the ball rolling. Fraudsters and con artists and even companies pretending to be legitimate move fast. It could be gone in a matter of months.

Act now please.

RoS17

This is so sad. I can't believe there's companies out there who treat people this way. I really hope you can get this resolved and wish you all the best. Keep us updated on how you get on.

pinkteapot

For info OP, I found a website that had reviewed The Lottery Centre and had spotted that they shared contact phone numbers with another company, the European Lottery Guild.

That company has popped up on MSE before, and partway down the thread someone else’s elderly relative ended up spending a significant sum with them.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3230842/european-lottery-guild-scam

pinkteapot

p.s. This is the site that notes the overlap in phone numbers between the two companies:

https://www.lottoexposed.com/thelotterycentre-exposed/