Scammers conned my father, a disabled Marine veteran out of over $34,000 on his birthday, not a week after coming out of much-needed hernia surgery.

While pretending to be Apple and Chase Bank associates who were investigating a fraudulent money laundering scheme, multiple individuals targeted, harassed, and manipulated my father, who was still in pain and in a vulnerable state, out of thousands of dollars without our family’s knowledge, by insinuating that if he told anyone, my mother and I would be implicated and arrested.

The money he lost included his Social Security payments, his retirement, and his VA benefits.

It absolutely broke my heart to see my strong and proud Marine father break down in tears today, as he said he was a “terrible father and husband” for falling for this scam, and losing out on all of the savings he had just built up after paying down our family’s credit card debts. He was so happy to finally be debt free, only to have these absolute monsters take advantage of him.

While we are cooperating with police and doing our best to help support him emotionally and financially through this difficult time, we are left stunned and helpless as we try to put our lives back together after this theft.

My father never raised me to ask for help or a hand out. But trying to take on everything himself, to try and protect his family, without being able to lean on anyone else, is why he was so cruelly exploited.

I now humbly say: we do need help to recover from this crime. It would mean everything to me if folks can donate and share, to help repay a faithful Marine veteran for his unfailing service.

Thank you

The Eberhardt Family