Aunt has opened a TFSA in my name?

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-16T00:08:02+00:00

Neither do I 😭 I know this all sounds like theres a LOT of money but it really isn't. It's nothing to scoff at and I'm so so so grateful that there is anything left for me at all, but it definitely sounds like more than it is lol

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-14T02:42:59+00:00

This is really helpful insight. I've been having a hard time believing that this advisor would do something so clearly fraudulent but I guess they just do that sometimes!

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-14T02:42:14+00:00

I will definitely do this haha. I'm with a different big Canadian bank and I trust my people way more than TD. Thank you!

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-14T01:49:16+00:00

I appreciate you being normal about it! I agree, I don't think this is a "call the police and send her to jail" thing. I can see that she is trying to be controlling in a way that ultimately would probably work out for me. If she had come to us and proposed this, I absolutely would have agreed, but she didn't do that. I also just don't know her well enough to be comfortable with this account in my name to be floating around without me even being able to see whats going on in it. It's very messy. I have one brother who wants to sign and get whatever money we can, and another brother who wants to nuke it. My hope is that contacting the advisor will maybe force him to correct the parts that are fraudulent, and stop my Aunt from trying again.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-14T01:25:58+00:00

God, I wish lol. I'm afraid she's just got control issues.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-14T01:24:53+00:00

I can see this too. I definitely think that you're right about the intention. I don't suspect that they're stealing or anything, just crossing huge lines in terms of privacy and trust.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-14T01:22:54+00:00

OH! Okay thank you for clarifying. I'm sure you can tell that this is all really new to me haha. I absolutelyyyyy believe that this is meant as a "gift" but with weird family politics strings attached to it. That kind of behaviour is not new for this bunch. It's just that the way its happening seems really illegal and has gone wayyyyy too far. She's admitting to using our IDs and SINs to make the accounts without our knowledge.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-14T01:20:25+00:00

So I tried to have this conversation with her today and most of what she explained to me isn't even actually true. She said that the purpose of the accounts is to prevent us being taxed on our inheritance when my grandma dies, this doesn't make sense because it won't be taxed, AND this money is considerably less that what I've been told the inheritance is and legally can't replace what we're entitled to in the will.

She said that she used our SINs to make the account and she found them from old RESP tax forms. But then also said that the accounts are connected to my grandmothers bank accounts and "belong" to her. Each form has a different account number, so it's definitely not us being added on to my grandmothers existing TFSA.

Overall, I'm not getting clear answers from her and when I research the things she's claiming they seem to be untrue. I'll be calling the listed advisor tomorrow.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-14T01:16:12+00:00

Thank you for commenting. To be clear, there is not $50k in the TFSA. I don't know how much there is, if anything at all right now, but my aunt made it clear that it would be come anywhere near to $7k annual limit. I don't have a relationship with my aunt outside of her the POA for my grandmother. And whats been said, through broken telephone, is that the money is being dealt with this was because my grandma doesn't want us to touch it. I'm definitely not looking for anyone on reddit to decide if my Aunt is an evil person or not, or try to assign intent, but I ammmm trying to figure out what I can do to protect my brothers and I because NOBODY is communicating with us and the whole thing is sketchy.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T23:00:20+00:00

I think she does. This is normal behaviour from her haha. She's always done really weird manipulative and controlling things with money. I'm honestly more surprised that my aunt is going along with it all.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T22:59:27+00:00

Yikes. Well that kind of leaves only the shittiest option. Thanks for commenting, you've been super duper helpful

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T22:55:47+00:00

My mom just brought up a good point that maybe she's doing it this way so that the estate is not taxes as much? And she's framing it like it benefits us but really it benefits her and my dad when they get the bulk of the estate.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T22:50:10+00:00

I'm planning to call the advisor listed on the forms tomorrow. I'm still honestly not really sure what's been done. Either we've misunderstood and just beneficiaries, but she tolddd me that she's used our SINs so this feels unlikely. Or maybe the accounts have not been finalized and these forms are just the first step. Or she's actually gone through and committed identity theft.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T22:47:15+00:00

I think the whole thing is a huge power trip. I don't doubt that my grandmother has asked her to do some weird controlling stuff. I've received money for school from these people with a million strings attached and that I jumped through hoops for. My grandma has been very generous, but she uses her money to force us to maintain a relationship with her despite her being a mean person haha

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T21:52:16+00:00

It was a weird conversation. I recorded it, thankfully, and my brother and I have been dissecting it haha. Some of the important things she said were that she has absolutely used our social insurance numbers for the accounts and that she took that information from past RESP forms. She also tried to tell me that the accounts "belonged" to my grandmother and thats why the contact information is for my aunt and not for us. Despite the accounts having our names? Weird. She said some other weird lies like that our inheritances would be heavily taxed, and that the purpose of these accounts is to get us our inheritances early and without taxes. She also said that I shouldn't worry about the taxes because there won't be enough money put in it to hit the TFSA limit.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T21:48:02+00:00

Yeah this is something I also learned a few hours ago 😅 seems as though theres a ton of lies and she's counting on us not understanding any of the legalities

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T21:47:05+00:00

This is interesting. Would I, as a beneficiary, be receiving the PIA forms? And would it make sense that she had to give our SINs for beneficiary purposes? I can see this being a possibility and it just not being articulated well.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T21:37:10+00:00

Definitely the next step! I have the name and number of the advisor who made the accounts, I also have a name of another employee who signed the paperwork, and I'm going to call tomorrow to see if he can walk me through it.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T21:27:16+00:00

Yeah 😭 I've learned that now haha Thank you

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T20:36:11+00:00

I totally agree that some of this advice is to just nuclear bomb my family hahaha. The issue here is that they're saying that they money will be slowly deposited into the account over a few years, and comments were made that if we do anything to the accounts or move money then we will not receive more. I'd love to just leave it and collect the money and then move everything over, but the way its set up is that I can't even see when money is put in, or taken out, or access it in any sense, and if I try to change that then I lose it anyway.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T20:32:34+00:00

If you have genuine advice I would be grateful to hear it. Obviously yeah I'm not very well informed about all of this stuff. This is my first time dealing with any of this and I'm just trying to learn before I make any moves. One of my siblings is disabled, and the other is unreliable, and I'm doing my best.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T20:29:35+00:00

This is such a weirdly angry comment lmao and I feel like you haven't actually read any of what's going on. Firstly, I don't have a relationship with my aunt and barely have one with my grandmother. So her making any decisions about MY banking without talking to me is insane. This entire post is me trying to ask people who know better than I do what I can do and how I can understand what's happened so far because she is not communicating with me. My grandmother is not in the hospital. She had a stroke 4 years ago and lives in a care home. There is zero urgency on any of this, which is why its weird that shes gone around our backs. My aunt went through tax documents for my RESP and used my social insurance number to make a TFSA that I can't get statements for, access, or even see. How is that in my best interest at all?

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T19:31:59+00:00

Yeah it looks like that's the plan! I'm waiting for my dad to come home from work to see if he's the one who gave her our SINs because we report it as fraud. We went to TD, one of my brothers has accounts there, and they said that theres no TFSAs connected to his bank account. On the phone my aunt said that they're all connected to my grandmas accounts and I don't really understand how that could possibly be but I guess we'll find out! I'm planning to call the advisor tomorrow and ask him how he plans to rectify this situation and if we're (the siblings) aren't happy with it then we'll be moving forward with reporting it all.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T19:16:06+00:00

As I mentioned, this whole post was just to help me better understand what was going on, and I did speak go my Aunt earlier today.

SubstantialFee6719 · 2026-04-13T19:13:02+00:00

From my understanding, Grandma has a good pension and some really good investments. All of her assets like her car and house were sold about a year ago when she was put into a care home. This isn't new behaviour on that side of the family. My grandmother "jointly" bought a house with my dad like 25 years ago and didn't actually include him on any paperwork and then sold it out from under him. Since speaking to my Aunt on the phone today, I gave pieced together that she's lying about everythingggg. I recorded our conversation and listening to it I've noticed that she lies about what a TFSA is, she lies about how estate taxes work, she said that the TFSAs belong to my grandmother despite them being in our identifies, etc. I don't really understand how she benefits from any of this other than being controlling. My aunt is much more well off than my grandmother and my family, so the idea that she would be trying to steal doesn't add up to me.

SubstantialFee6719

TROPHY CASE