Scammers swindle Oceanside Marine veteran out of nearly $35K on his 76th birthday
A senior Marine veteran from Oceanside said scammers took his dignity when they swindled him out of nearly $35,000 through an elaborate phone call scheme.
Tom Eberhardt received a call from a woman claiming to be an Apple representative telling him his account had been compromised in connection with racketeering and money laundering activities.
“I said, ‘Well, I don’t do any of that, so I don’t worry about that.’ But she wanted to tell me how bad it was and wanted to go in more detail,” Eberhardt said.
It happened on Oct. 27, the day of Eberhardt’s 76th birthday.
“I came back from Vietnam with PTSD, and this has just brought it back on all over again,” Tom Eberhardt said.
Scams
Eberhardt said the fake representative then asked him to download an app called Cursor. When he opened it, he saw a list of charges the woman claimed were from his account.
“She said, I think you better call Chase Bank and see what’s going on because there’s charges going against your card and everything,” Eberhardt said.
The woman gave Eberhardt a false Chase Bank phone number.
When Eberhardt called, a man claiming to be a Chase Bank representative answered telling him he had three charges against his account.
“He said, ‘The only thing I think you could do is, you take the money out and redeposit it and it will be like a charge to knock out that $24,700 that are prequalified on your account,'” Eberhardt said.
Eberhardt then went to a Chase Bank to withdraw the money. The scammers asked him not to tell anyone.
Eberhardt was directed to a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant, where he met with the scammer courier and dropped off $24,000 in cash.
“He was a young guy. I would say about five-five. He had sunglasses and a baseball cap and covered his face a little. He said, ‘Tom.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘You know what the passcode is?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Do you know what the passcode is?’ He said, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ I handed him the box of money and stuff like that and he said thanks and left,” Eberhardt said.
Eberhardt thought the money would be deposited into a new account.
But the next day, he received a call demanding another $10,000.
This time he told Eberhardt there was no courier available to pick up the money, so he asked him to mail it to a New York address.
Eberhardt did as he was told.
“Took pictures of all the money on both transactions and everything,” he said.
After mailing the $10,000, Eberhardt realized he had been a victim of a scam.
“It’s what I saved for a long time in retirement. It’s something that people my age want to look forward to and don’t want to depend on other people for. What they’ve done has taken away my dignity and my way of life, trusting people I don’t know,” Eberhardt said.
For Amanda Eberhardt, seeing the man she admires most become a victim of a scheme has been devastating.
“He was my first hero, really. He doesn’t like that term, actually, but as a man, you know, he set a good example of what it means to be an empathetic and caring person,” Amanda Eberhardt said.
Eberhardt said he had signed up at the Oceanside Senior Center to take a class on scams, but he never had the opportunity to complete the course.
He filed a report with the Oceanside Police Department and military authorities, who are investigating.
Authorities said you should never provide personal or bank information to unsolicited callers.
The family started a fundraising page to help him recover the money.
