This is the story of Hayley Philpot, the Melbourne real estate agent who scammed Mr. and Mrs. Bennett out of their life savings
Full Episode
So one day, boom, this guy gets hit with dementia. His name is Mr. Bennett. And Mr. Bennett lives in Melbourne with his wife, this woman, Mrs. Bennett. So Mr. Bennett gets hit with dementia. And Mrs. Bennett doesn't really have the skill set to take care of him anymore. So unfortunately, she decides she's going to have to put him in a nursing home. And in doing so, she needs to sell their house.
So she goes to a real estate agent to help her with this, this woman, Haley. So she asks Haley to help sell their home and Haley's like, yeah, I'll help. And she gets right to work. She sets it all up. She lists their house on the market. But then over time, Haley, she starts helping them with things outside of selling their home. Like they're trying to pick out a nursing home for Mr. Bennett.
So she's like driving them around to different nursing homes to help them make a decision. And this is a huge benefit to the Bennetts because they don't have any other family around. So they really appreciate what Haley's doing for them. But then Haley starts to get a little greedy. Whatever money she was going to make helping them sell their house, I guess it isn't enough.
Because one day Haley goes to them and she offers to help them with something beyond real estate. She wants to help them manage their day-to-day finances. And the Bennetts, they can't keep up with all this accounting and paying bills, so they're like, alright. And that is when, unfortunately, Mrs. Bennet hands power of attorney over their finances over to Haley. So, what does Haley do?
Well, she accesses the couple's internet banking, and she adds their debit card to her phone wallet. And then she starts spending. So she's over here hitting up clothing stores and restaurants. She's buying the expensive kind of makeup. She's living a pretty good life off of their money. And eventually even Mrs. Bennett starts to notice a little.
Like suddenly Haley's wearing cashmere coats all the time and her hair is all professionally done. But then Haley thinks, you know what? A new car would be kind of nice too. So she uses the Bennett's money to make payments on a Mercedes Benz. And one time Haley even picks Mrs. Bennett up in this new Benz and she's like, hey, what do you think of my new ride?
And Mrs. Bennett's like, eh, it's too flashy. And of course she doesn't realize it's her money that paid for that car. So anyway, this goes on for a while, and Hailey just keeps spending.
She gets beauty treatments and a new iPhone and a new MacBook, and the Bennetts don't fully catch on because Hailey has gone into their banking info and changed the address so that all the Bennetts' bank statements are redirected to her own home address. So the Bennetts never see any bank statements and they have no idea the little bit of savings they have is slowly disappearing.
But then it gets worse. One day, Haley goes to Mrs. Bennet and she makes up a story and she's like, oh no, you're being investigated by the government. And she tells them that this fake investigation is going to cause them to lose their pension.
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