This kind of personal loan (w/o black n white) very ley-chey 1 ...... haizzzz.
Very sad to hear about your mom's case
Years back, a samster (space***) also used another samster's trust/friendship and made him loan out almost S$10K and the chee bye borrower 'run-road' ....... na bey pua chee bye!
then again, another real incident:
samster free said a fellow samster (I cannot say who lah, later he angry he use Or Kao Beet bottle and hammer me then I die ... hehe) very support his tirakship, so free thought could ask him to lend S$3k so that free can go LOS to visit his tirak cos free said he got 8 months never visit his tirak liao and his business payment was delayed, so must 'chong' some $.
(knn, dun reply me say this is history liao so dun bring up hor, we also learn from history ok).
Lan jiao lah, best is if you duno that person very well better dun get involved too large amount of money.