58-year-old woman sends $1.5M to scammers, gets angry when 20-year-old son prevents her from taking money out of her 401K to send the scammers $30K more

Some people can't be saved from their own stupidity.

Do you recall the article from a couple of years ago about a woman who put her life savings in a shoebox and gave it to scammers? She claims that she never thought she would fall for something like that, but scammers can manipulate otherwise intelligent people into doing incredibly foolish things.

I have yet to be in a situation where I've felt compelled to give all my money away to random people, but if someone is threatening you or telling you that you'll get back double the money you put in, you might feel inclined to believe them. How many people are convinced that they're going to make back the money they put into sports betting, despite there being no evidence that that's the case? There are scams all around us at all times, and we must be mindful that even if we were above average in school, we're not too smart to be taken advantage of in this way. It's hard to see someone resist help when they're actively getting scammed, especially older, vulnerable family members.

The young man in this story is trying to help his mom, but she is a non-starter. She has sent over a million dollars to scammers and is convinced that she will get her money back and then some. Now, she wants to borrow from her 401K, even though she's not 59.5 years old yet.
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Am I the bad guy for not allowing my Mom to withdraw from her 401k after she's been scammed for over $1,000,000?

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$house (small fraction of the total value). She won't be able to sell her house within 2 weeks so she wants to withdraw from her 401k. Since she is not 59 1/2, she cannot withdraw from her 401k.$

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