A Singaporean recently turned to Reddit’s r/askSingapore for advice after revealing that his father had fallen victim to scams multiple times — with the latest incident wiping out nearly all of his savings.
In his post, the son shared that his father had once again been cheated, this time losing a four-figure sum. Sadly, it wasn’t the first time.
According to him, his dad has made several questionable financial decisions over the years, including, signing up for unnecessary credit cards, borrowing money from various people, and falling for a lottery scam, where a temple staff claimed to have bought a winning ticket but demanded a payment before releasing the “winnings”
He then shared that he is considering taking over his father’s finances and the dad’s physical access to money.
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The father he added is still working, earning a “low $2,000, smokes and buys lottery tickets.”
“It isn’t out of line to micromanage right?”
The post sparked a wave of responses from fellow Singaporeans, many urging the son to step in before things get worse.
odascape commented, “Nope, you do what you gotta do. You are averting a potential financial disaster here. Take over whatever control he is willing to surrender and negotiate the rest. Get him hospital insurance too or his medical bills will be a burden in the future.”
They went on to share a personal story:
“We took over from my idiotic father who gambled everything we had on stocks, MBS and his business. Conned my mom of 200K and other relatives too. My savings from my first job went to paying off a relative he owed. He is retired now with less than 2K in his account. Basically it depends on us to keep him alive. He still buys lottery tickets regularly. We can’t stop him from going, but it’s better for him to risk a small token sum than six figures.”
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Another user didn’t hold back:
“Better to micromanage now than to suffer the consequences later. Limit his money so he will not be tempted to do anything silly. The worst it can be is that you suddenly have a super young sibling,” said b0h3mianed.
They added that sometimes children have no choice but to “parent” their parents:
“He can complain all he wants... I feel as they age, we as children have to ‘parent’ them instead. They feel they know it all, know it better, eat salt more than rice, but often it is not the case. The world they are used to is no longer the one they are living in now.”
