Three Men, One Door, and My Terrified Mum

What happens when grief makes you vulnerable—and someone decides to cash in on it

8pm on Monday night, my phone shows four missed calls.

Two from Mum. Two from my brother.

Never a good sign.

By the time I get her on the phone, she’s locked out of an apartment, alone, crying in a stairwell—and a locksmith is asking her for $800 to open two doors…

That was just the start of it.

This one is a doozy, buckle up!

The context

A couple of weeks ago, my Nan passed away.

I wrote extensively about this woman who had done so much for our family in this newsletter.

My Nan was my Mum’s Mum, and they were best mates.

They would hang out every day, go on little adventures and chat constantly about what was happening and reminisce on the crazier times.

Since my Nan passed, my Mum has been pretty heartbroken (understandably so).

Mum had been feeling a little lost, so she decided to take a couple of weeks to herself, escape the constant reminders on the Central Coast and come to Melbourne to stay in my brother’s vacant apartment while he holidays in the USA.

My brother’s apartment is located on the 3rd floor of an older apartment building tucked one street back from Church Street in Richmond.

She had been enjoying her little getaway.

Day trips, visiting cafes, going to dinner or the movies with me, having lunch with my brother Luke, walking around town or simply just laying down and crying without any distraction.

Whatever she needed to do to feel better, she was doing it.

The prelude

On Monday night, I was catching up on work when I decided to take a break to check my phone and start prepping for dinner.

It was roughly 8 pm.

I checked and saw several missed calls from Mum and Luke… not a good sign.

She had just returned from an outing to find that she had lost the key to my brother’s apartment somewhere on her travels.

Already feeling a sense of hopelessness and burden from losing her best mate, she was brought to a place of distress, with no way to get into the apartment and no one to come and help.

She had spent over half an hour in the stairwell, crying and attempting to contact my brother and me for help.

Luke managed to speak to her and sent her a locksmith's website.

In a state of panic, she called the locksmith and asked them to come help without receiving a quote or any expectation of what the job might cost.

I finally managed to get onto her, and by now it was closer to 830pm.

The locksmith had arrived and was asking for $1000 to open the 2 doors, but ‘graciously’ had brought the price down to $800. She was distraught and didn’t know what to do.

I asked her to put the locksmith on the phone…

I explained to the guy that she is an older woman who is in distress and not thinking clearly, as she had just lost her Mum. I reiterated that I knew he was just doing his job, but I wanted to know what options we had, as $800 seemed preposterous.

He said that for the doors to be opened, it would be $800; otherwise, pay a cancellation fee of $150.

I apologised for wasting his time, but said that neither of those options seemed reasonable given my Mum’s distress. I told him that his services were not needed tonight and that I would come collect my Mum, then gave him my name and number and told him I would sort out the fee with his company tomorrow.

I said I was happy to pay something, just not right now.

He probed for an amount of money that I would be able to pay…

I told him that no money was being exchanged tonight, thanked him for his time and told him that I would be coming to get my Mum shortly.

Midway through my sentence, he hung up the phone in frustration.

Not a good sign.

The drama

I was halfway through dinner when he hung up the phone, but immediately jumped up, threw on some shoes and headed straight out the door.

I ordered an Uber, but it was taking too long, so I flagged a vacant taxi.

Once in the taxi, I called to make sure Mum was ok and to reassure her that I was on my way. She was crying and telling me not to come.

I could hear that the guy was still there.

But why would he still be there? The job had been cancelled, this doesn’t make sense.

I started panicking.

A couple of minutes later, I received a phone call from my Dad…

“Matt, hurry, there’s 3 of them now”

I hang up and instantly tick into fight or flight. I don’t have the full picture, but I’m now really concerned. It’s late at night, and there are 3 guys surrounding my anxious, elderly mother.

I start filtering through the possibilities.

This could be nothing, but in the rare case that it is something, I need to be prepared.

I make a call to my buddy, someone I know can handle themselves if things go sideways.

“Mate, my Mum is in trouble, I need you to be at this address ASAP”

He simply responded, “Say less, I’ll be there in 10”.

As I’m headed down Church Street, we pass the Richmond cop shop, and I see 2 officers in their paddy wagon. I tell the taxi driver to stop immediately and let me out. I hand him my phone as collateral and sprint toward the cops.

I try to calm my breathing (by now the adrenaline is well and truly pumping) and give them a quick backstory.

I basically let them know that I believe my Mum is being extorted and that I am about to head over there into what may be a hostile situation. I tell them that they don’t have to attend, but it might be worth being there in case things escalate.

Then I charge back to the taxi, hop in and proceed toward the apartment.

The taxi pulls up, I pay the fare and Usain Bolt down an alleyway to the back street and toward the apartment block.

Running toward the steps up to the apartment, I start yelling out, I can’t see my Mum yet, but just in case they are surrounding her, as I believe, I want to scare them away.

“Fuck off you dogs”

“Leave my Mum alone… fuck you cunts”

I race past 2 of them, who are now sitting on the stairs just outside the apartment, and one of them starts yelling back at me, taunting me. I ignore him, I just want to get to my Mum.

As I approach the top flight of stairs, I see the apartment door has been opened.

Mum is inside and sitting down, she appears to be ok.

I start believing that I may have miscalculated, maybe I was wrong. I have a huge dump of adrenaline and realise that the police are now approaching a situation that may have been a huge waste of their time.

So I turn to run back down the stairs to greet the cops and tell them that there was a misunderstanding and that I am sorry for wasting their time.

They now have a duty of care to investigate and proceed to head up the stairs.

I take myself away from the scene to calm down.

While I am pacing around and trying to settle my breathing, I overhear the cops asking the guys questions… “Who do you work for?” and “Why do you need three men to open one door?”, the cops are clearly suspect on what has been going on, but without any real proof, they take their details and allow them to leave.

The cops head up to check on Mum, and the guys head downstairs to where I am now sitting. We start chatting. At this point, my mate arrives and sees me and these guys calmly talking about what had just happened.

I apologise to the guys for overreacting, still thinking that I had misread the situation.

The guys leave, and the cops come down after finishing with Mum. I apologise again for wasting their time; they assure me that this is not time wasted, as companies that prey on the vulnerable do exist.

They were also of the opinion that something sinister may have been at play.

The cops leave, and my buddy and I go to check in on my Mum.

The aftermath

We sat down with Mum to go through what had happened.

She said that after the guy hung up on me, he went to get 2 of his friends and that the 3 of them cornered my Mum and told her to call her son (me), so that they could get paid.

She refused to call me and instead started crying and saying that she was scared.

A few of the neighbours poked their heads out to see what the commotion was about, and I believe in a moment of panic, the guys caved and accepted $200 to open the door rather than have this escalate any further.

I made sure Mum felt safe and calm, and then got a ride home with my mate.

When I arrived home, I called Dad to debrief on the craziness that had just taken place, still not really sure if I had overreacted or not.

During our conversation, we started going over the details, and it became abundantly clear what had just happened. After searching for the company’s reviews, we were inundated with scam warnings—Trustpilot, Reddit, Product Review, you name it, these guys were very well known to be pure scum.

Here’s a very small sample…

After seeing dozens of very recent reviews sharing the same experience of helplessness, I became a little disoriented in how to feel.

On one hand, I was justified in my quick response and outrage.

On the other hand, I had apologised to these guys and allowed them to walk away after just terrifying and intimidating my already heartbroken Mother.

I didn’t necessarily need to resort to violence, but I did want justice.

And after seeing all these reviews, clearly corroborating our suspicions that these guys preyed on the weak and vulnerable, it made my thirst for justice even more prevalent.

My Mum was safe, my job for this night was done, but this saga is nowhere near finished.

A note to those involved

To my Mum, who showed insane courage to make a scene in the face of this terror rather than silently complying, I am so proud of you! You made your voice heard and scared these cowards into changing course.

To my mate who answered the call (you know who you are) without a second thought about self-preservation… thank you. You were there in my family’s time of need; that’s what family does for one another. Your selflessness in that moment showed me who I already knew you to be: a man of honour, bravery and integrity.

To the cops who took me seriously and arrived to help manage the situation with professionalism and calmness, thank you.

To the three weak excuses of men who attempted to intimidate an old, vulnerable woman for money, you are cowards who choose to lean into greed and self-preservation over common decency… shame on you.

Final thoughts

This was a truly wild experience, one that I am glad resulted in a decent outcome.

I’m glad my Mum is safe. Glad my mate answered the call without hesitation. Glad the cops took it seriously.

But we were the lucky exception.

These guys will try this again. And next time, the person on the other end of that phone might not have a son who can get there in time.

We’re not done with this. Not even close.

For now, I’m just grateful for what we still have.

That’s it from me this week, gang.

With gratitude,

SAV

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