Navy veteran warns of online security scammers that robbed him of his life savings
By Tara Jakeway
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WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (WPBF) — West Palm Beach native John McKendrick says he missed all the warning signs. He may be 80 but the U.S. Navy veteran has a master’s and is quite tech-savvy. But still, he says scammers wiped out his bank account.
“This money that they took, it was money I was living on. It was my main account,” McKendrick said through tears.
It all started in March when McKendrick spotted an odd charge on his credit card for what he thought was Norton Security Protection. He said he Googled the company and called a number he found. The person who answered said he needed remote access to his computer to check whether their software was installed.
“So I gave them access to my computer to check and they said, ‘No, you don’t have Norton installed, but look what we found. We found all these hackers,” McKendrick said.
McKendrick says he was convinced that he needed their expertise.
“He said, ‘Well, what we are going to do is we are going to put money into your bank account and that will be what triggers the hackers,” he said.
His desktop was suddenly flooded with pop-up scam tabs so McKendrick gave Thomas the deceptive expert his account info and watched what he thought was his bank balance go up by $10,000.
“Then, my job was to go and withdraw that money from my account. What I would do to return the money would be to go to a Bitcoin machine,” he said.
McKendrick repeated that process every day for a week, each time scanning and sending a receipt to the agent.
“So he was assured he would get his money back. Well, as it turns out, that was my money he was getting back,” McKendrick said.
By the time the American hero caught on, $94,000 was gone. Money he’s been saving for a final goodbye to his late wife.
“I was planning out things where I was going to spend part of it on a lovely celebration in London, the funeral service we were going to have,” he said through tears.
McKendrick filed a police report with PBSO, has spoken to his local representatives and reached out to his bank. He says even if he doesn’t get his money back, he hopes his story will stop someone else from making the same mistakes.
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