WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — John McKendrick, who grew up in West Palm Beach, says he missed all the signs.The U.S. Navy veteran may be 80, but he has a master’s degree and is very tech-savvy. Still, he says that scammers took all the money out of his bank account.
“The money they took was money I needed to live. “It was my main account,” McKendrick said with tears in her eyes.
In March, McKendrick saw a strange charge on his credit card for something he thought was Norton Security Protection. He said that he looked up the business on Google and called a number he found. The person who answered said he needed direct access to his computer to check if their software was loaded.
“So I let them check my computer, and they said, ‘No, you don’t have Norton loaded, but look what we found. McKendrick said, “We found all of these hackers.”
McKendrick says that he was sure he needed their skills.
“Well, what we’re going to do is put money in your bank account,” he said. “That’s what will get the hackers’ attention.”
His screen was suddenly full of pop-up scam tabs, so McKendrick gave Thomas the false expert his account information and watched what he thought was his bank balance go up by $10,000.
“Then it was my job to go get that money out of my account. “I would go to a Bitcoin machine to give the money back,” he said.
McKendrick did this every day for a week, scanning and sending the agency a ticket each time.
So he knew for sure he’d get his money back. “Well, it turned out that he was giving me back my money,” McKendrick said.
By the time the American hero figured it out, $94,000 had already been taken. He has been saving money for a last trip to see his late wife.
“I was making plans to spend some of it on a nice party in London for the funeral service we were going to have,” he said with tears in his eyes.
McKendrick has told the PBSO, his neighborhood officials, and his bank about what happened. He says that even if he doesn’t get his money back, he hopes his story will keep someone else from making the same mistakes.
