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I lost my husband to cancer ten years ago. Shortly before he died I bought him a farm, which he greatly enjoyed with my stepson. The local banker who wrote our mortgage, (and also owned the real estate company which sold us the farm), became very friendly with the two of them. My husband told me that he wanted the banker to be a part of our family, help raise his son after he was gone.

After my husband’s death the banker was very friendly, and very pushy, wanting to marry me, take care of the farm, help make my husband’s dreams come true, etc. Foolishly I trusted him — (and started dating him). He went on a spending spree with my money and created enormous problems for me.

Every deadbeat who was behind on loans at his bank, every person he needed to curry favor with, ended up with some of my money. I had to fire them all and redo everything from scratch. The worst was that he authorised all sorts of construction work on my home without consulting me first — then I got hit with the bill. The work was faulty and it cost me over $300,000.00 to fix the problems.

He also misrepresented me in real estate transactions, costing me quite a bit of money.

At one point he didn’t want to pay interest on my CDs at his bank, (which he inherited from his father). A little intervention from the father finally got me my money back, but not without legal intervention.

I am told by a lawyer that there is nothing I can do because there is no ‘banker’s code of ethics’ against dating a client: as doctors and lawyers have.

I know I was a very foolish, very naive, distraught widow. Do I have any options ?

Thanks for taking the time to read this.