A heartbreaking story appeared on the r/CryptoScams forum from user BabyDuckinmotion123. His mother, who had already lost about $500,000 to a romance scam in 2023, found herself in trouble once again. This time, she invested $300,000 in a mysterious project called Bank of Humanity. The most terrifying part, according to the author of the post, is that she took out a loan secured against her pension specifically for this purpose, and she was drawn into the scheme by a retired pensioner and fellow parishioners from her own church.

Commenters quickly confirmed the worst fears. According to user yarevande, Bank of Humanity is an unlicensed fraudulent organization against which the Philippine authorities have already issued official warnings. User Blockchainauditor backed this up with a link to an article containing a warning from the central bank of the Philippines ^[1].

As user Few_Mention8426 explained, the involvement of acquaintances from church is a classic sign of a Ponzi scheme. Those who persuaded the mother to invest genuinely believe they are receiving bonuses for recruiting new people, and they may even show "proof" of successful payouts. But in reality, withdrawing large sums is impossible, and the pyramid will soon collapse.

The chances of recovering the enormous debt are practically nonexistent. According to users xuncx and IdeaFrequent4358, the money is gone forever, and the scammers will not return it voluntarily. The situation is made worse by the fact that scam victims are often in a state of denial.

User ElectroStaticSpeaker suggested a radical but perhaps the only way out of such a situation: to obtain guardianship or take away the mother's right to manage her own finances, since she clearly cannot handle it on her own and poses a threat to her own financial well-being.