It can happen to anyone. Your parent. Your partner. Your neighbour.

Beware Mysterious Mark is a ten-part audio documentary about elder financial abuse, built around one harrowing true account of how a predator isolated an elderly man from his family and systematically took control of his life and his assets. Names have been changed. Events and conversations are drawn directly from the family's own detailed records.

Told by storyteller Nancy Miles, whose partner Brooke watched her father taken piece by piece over seven years, the series weaves dramatized conversations re-enacted by actors with commentary from professionals who see these cases every day: an estate planning lawyer, a geriatrician, a capacity assessment specialist, and a researcher whose doctoral work focused on loneliness in older adults.

Together, they expose how undue influence actually works. How charm, patience, and calculated lies can turn a trusted new friend into a captor. How family members, doctors, police and financial institutions all try to help, and how often that help arrives too late. And most importantly, what warning signs to watch for, and what to do when you see them.

Elder financial abuse exists in every community. It is rarely a single phone scam. More often it is the slow, deliberate theft of everything a person has worked a lifetime to build. Better informed families, friends and neighbours can make a real difference.

Ten episodes. New episodes are released weekly.

Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.

Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: themarkdoc.ca

Contact: info@radiosidney.ca