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Be Warned! How Navy Veteran Lost $92,000 to This Online Scam
A cautionary tale about the sophistication of criminals who target the vulnerable
Rob Dobi
Scammers prey on veterans, exploiting their trust and goodwill, often striking when they are most vulnerable.
That’s what happened to John McKendrick, 80, of West Palm Beach, Florida, a retired Navy lieutenant commander and veteran of 20 years who lost his life savings. Now, he wants to warn other veterans.
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You can subscribe here to AARP Veteran Report, a free e-newsletter published twice a month. If you have feedback or a story idea then please contact us here.
McKendrick was grieving the death of his wife of 46 years and preparing to go to England for her funeral when the scammer struck. He was, as he puts it, “not in a good frame of mind” when he noticed an odd charge for “Norton” on his credit card statement.
His bank advised calling Norton Security, so he Googled the company and found a phone number. The “customer service representative” asked McKendrick to click a link that would allow him remote control of the computer to check for the Norton software.
“Against my better judgment, I allowed him to do this,” McKendrick told AARP Veteran Report. “Once on my computer, he verified that I did not have Norton Security installed. But he did report that during his inspection, he had found at least 28 active hackers on my computer.”
At this point, McKendrick, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and a member of the class of 1966, didn’t realize there was only one hacker inside his machine: the man he was speaking to on the phone.
According to Troy Broussard, senior adviser to the AARP Veterans and Military Families Initiative, enabling a hacker to infiltrate your computer is a turning point: “Giving any type of control to a potential scammer can lead to escalated losses. It is so easy to do. Many years ago, I experienced this myself when a scammer was about to take over my computer, but I realized it at the last moment.”
Once the scammer has control, the result can be devastating. That is exactly what happened to McKendrick next. The man said Norton was working with the FBI and other federal agencies to catch hackers and that McKendrick could help them.
His bank advised calling Norton Security, so he Googled the company and found a phone number. The “customer service representative” asked McKendrick to click a link that would allow him remote control of the computer to check for the Norton software.
“Against my better judgment, I allowed him to do this,” McKendrick told AARP Veteran Report. “Once on my computer, he verified that I did not have Norton Security installed. But he did report that during his inspection, he had found at least 28 active hackers on my computer.”
At this point, McKendrick, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and a member of the class of 1966, didn’t realize there was only one hacker inside his machine: the man he was speaking to on the phone.
He’s also angry that none of the tellers offered him a receipt that would have shown his dwindling balance in black and white.
“If they had done that, I would have seen what was actually there,” he says. “Instead, I would get back home, and the guy would dummy up the bank statement online. And what I saw was that everything was OK.”
While McKendrick has other savings to fall back on, he says he feels “devastated” by what happened and is intent on warning others. With awareness, people can be alert to the red flags for such fraud, such as urgent requests for action, instructions to wire money or send cryptocurrency, and advice to lie to others and/or hide the situation.
McKendrick advises that if anything seems amiss in an interaction you’re having online, simply walk away. “If you feel like you’re in a scamming situation, just hang up and do nothing,” he says. “If I had just turned my computer off, I wouldn’t have lost anything.”
Advice on scams and how to combat them can be found at the AARP Veterans Fraud Center.
You can subscribe here to AARP Veteran Report, a free e-newsletter published twice a month. If you have feedback or a story idea then please contact us here.
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