'While my parents were suffering from dementia, my brother did something unthinkable.'

"He's cleaned me out."

Those four words uttered by my elderly father during our weekly visit, started a chain of events that would dominate my life for the next year and a half.

Given that Dad was in the early stages of dementia at the time, I wasn't sure whether he was referring to events that had occurred many years ago, or if it was more recent. What I was certain of, though, was who and what it was about.

Watch: Three women's stories of financial abuse. Post continues below.

My brother Michael*, a serial 'entrepreneur', spent most of his adult life burning through my parents' money.

Their multiple investment properties and bank accounts.

They had arrived in Australia as migrants and worked in factories for almost 60 years. No holidays or restaurants, just saving it all to secure their and their two children's futures.

By then, all the investment houses were gone, leaving only the dilapidated home they lived in. Michael had managed to squander it all, on business ideas or the high life, buying designer clothing, sports cars and dining out. He firmly believed in the old saying, "fake it 'til you make it" — but needless to say, it doesn't always turn out that way.

Michael had moved to the USA about 14 years earlier to pursue whatever his latest hare-brained ideas were, but had been flying back to Australia a few times a year (business class, of course) for reasons of his own. He would stay with our elderly parents in the home he and I grew up in.

By then, Mum had dementia and Dad was in the early stages. Michael and I had been estranged for some years, but in the past year had resumed texting in an attempt to try to work out how best to support our parents.

"He's cleaned me out."

After the weekly visit, where we brought overcooked food and changed my parents' bed linen, I drove home but couldn't get the words out of my head. I resolved to go searching for their bank book (of course they still had one) during the following week's visit.

Bingo.

There it was — where else but under the mattress? I opened it and my blood ran cold. There were four internet banking payments totalling $40,000, followed by a transaction where the remaining $130,000 had been withdrawn, but returned a few days later.

I couldn't get any straight answers from Dad so I decided to contact their local bank. Dad would walk to his local branch every fortnight for his over-the-counter withdrawal, so the bank staff knew him. I phoned them, and when the bank manager heard who I was, her first words to me were: "We've been looking for you, we know what's been going on. Your parents are victims of financial abuse."

I burst into tears as she explained everything that had happened over the previous few months. How Michael had come into the bank with my parents — including my frail mother with dementia — and made himself a signatory to their account. After setting up internet banking, he proceeded to transfer the $40k to his own account in stages.

For his grand finale, he brought Dad into the bank to request the full amount of $130,000 be withdrawn for "renovations". By then, the bank had an inkling as to what was happening, thanks to the astuteness of one of their tellers. The problem was that Dad was now agreeing to this final transfer, which would leave his account virtually empty.

There was nothing that the bank could do, so they reluctantly drew a cheque for the amount.

Not long afterwards, Michael returned to the US with the money. A day or so later, Dad returned to the bank, and in his broken English, told the teller that he "had no money and had to eat snails to live".

When the bank manager relayed this to me, I broke down and sobbed. Fortunately, the bank had been able to cancel the cheque and the $130,000 was returned. To protect my parents, however, the bank suggested I apply to VCAT (Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal) to become administrator of their finances.

Without getting into the details, the multiple VCAT hearings that followed really showcased the problems with the system. Five months after the process started, a great outcome was reached with the appointment of State Trustees of Victoria as the legal administrators of my parents' bank account. I had requested a neutral third party be appointed as I certainly didn't want all the reporting and administrative obligations of managing their account. I just wanted what was left of their money to be safe for them.

Sadly, the story doesn't end there.

Two months after that hearing, Michael requested — and for whatever reason, was granted — a re-hearing. I truly thought it would be a formality, as I had a pile of evidence showing his financial losses, including bank records. Instead, the person presiding over the hearing, in his infinite wisdom, made my brother administrator.

I got home that afternoon, crawled into my bed and cried for hours. I felt equally furious and helpless. Fury at the member who ignored all the evidence and even Michael's admissions, and still decided to give him what was left of my parents' money. At the injustice of it all. Helpless because I desperately wanted to fix the situation — but as the subsequent weeks and months would prove, I could not.

That was almost five years ago. Dad suffered a massive stroke weeks later, and he and Mum finally ended up in an aged care home where they should have been years earlier.

As for Michael, it took only a week or so for him to clean out the bank account and return to the US. That was the last time he was in Australia, not even returning for our parents' funerals — the financial responsibility of which the State Trustees put on me, as there was no money left in the account.

But that's another story.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

Image: Getty.