OCEANSIDE — A veteran family is continuing to recover after losing $34,000 to a phone scam only a few weeks before Veterans Day, with the Oceanside Police Department currently investigating the case.
On Thomas Eberhardt’s 76th birthday in late October, he received a call from a woman who allegedly worked for Apple. Identifying herself as Tima Bell, the woman told Eberhardt there were multiple fraud alerts on his account with several charges that appeared to be withdrawing large sums of money. She told him the withdrawals appeared to be linked to racketeering and money laundering schemes.
At first, he wasn’t concerned, because he knew he wasn’t involved in any such illegal activities. She then asked to look at his phone, still posing as Apple, to download a cursor app that would allow her to appear to scroll through his phone and the alleged charges.
“That was the wrong thing to do,” Eberhardt said. “She scrolled so fast I couldn’t recognize the charges I was being shown.”
She then gave him a number allegedly for J.P. Morgan & Chase Bank, where he is a customer. He knew that Chase Bank would never call him asking for information, so it seemed legitimate that he would need to call them.
When he called, he spoke to a man claiming to be Jonathan Hunt, who told him he saw several large charges amounting in tens of thousands of dollars on his account. He put Eberhardt on hold to “attempt” to get rid of them; and when he came back, he said he had successfully eliminated all but one $24,000 “prequalified” charge, which he explained could only happen if Eberhardt had signed for and authorized it, which he didn’t.
Hunt, who was allegedly working with a supervisor to help Eberhardt, said the charges could have been the work of an inside job through multiple people who worked for Chase trying to get his money. To stop the “prequalified” charge, he told Eberhardt he would need to withdraw the money from his account and put it back in to override the charge.
Hunt then told Eberhardt that because he could only withdraw and put back in a limited amount of money each day, he would have a courier come to pick up the money to have it deposited back into the account. He also asked Eberhardt to share a password with him to help identify the courier.
The man also told Eberhardt that no one else could know about this, otherwise it could implicate them in the illegal scheme, and potentially cause other bad things to happen.
At one point the call dropped, and when Hunt called back, he appeared angry and threatening with Eberhardt.
“He told me this is serious, you can’t be fooling around — someone could get hurt,” Eberhardt said. “I was following instructions because I thought it was the right thing to do.”
The Tima Bell and Jonathan Hunt characters also appeared to know everything about Eberhardt, including his account information, where he lived, and other sensitive information, which made the scheme more convincing – and threatening.
Eberhardt quickly left his home on Camp Pendleton, where he lives in veteran military housing with his wife Idona and daughter Amanda, without telling them what was going on.
He then went to the Chase Bank location at 1040 Mission Avenue in Oceanside, where he withdrew $24,000.
Both his daughter and wife questioned why they were never alerted about this large withdrawal by the bank, considering they are both on the account with him.
In response to an inquiry from The Coast News, a Chase Bank spokesperson explained via email that “the customer either declined to answer or stated it was for a red Corvette as a birthday gift, claiming to have seen and test-driven the car,” after branch staff asked him about the withdrawals. The customer also appeared to show no signs of distress during his interactions with branch staff.
Eberhardt said he doesn’t remember saying that at all.
After withdrawing the money, Eberhardt met the alleged courier by the Wendy’s at 1002 Mission Avenue, which is located only a few hundred yards away in the same shopping center as the Chase Bank. There, he met a man who spoke English but partially covered his face by wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. He handed the money contained in a taped package over to the man, who left with it.
The next day, Hunt called back and said there were still attempts being made to get more money out of his bank. He instructed Eberhardt to once again remove the money, but instead of using a courier to pick it up, he asked him to ship it through UPS to an address in Flushing, a neighborhood in Queens, New York.
Eberhardt went to another Chase Bank at 2580 El Camino Real in Carlsbad to withdraw the $10,000 from a different account, then went to a local UPS store to send it off. An hour after completing this task, he started to get a “funny feeling” about the whole thing.
“I didn’t sleep at all that night,” he said.
He made a report to the FBI late that evening and then went to Oceanside Police Department to report what happened, but was turned away and sent back to Camp Pendleton police instead. He also attempted to stop the package from being delivered to New York by going back to UPS, but the package had already arrived at its destination.
Camp Pendleton police spent more than an hour listening to Eberhardt about what happened, then redirected him back to OPD.
Eberhardt and his family felt they were treated rudely by one of the officers at OPD, who appeared to laugh at his plight.
“We thought it could have been handled with more compassion for him,” his daughter said.
While there, however, they heard from another officer about another recent instance in which a young Marine was scammed out of $10,000.
OPD confirmed with The Coast News that investigators are currently looking into the case.
“Because this is an active investigation, we are unable to release any reports or statements at this time,” stated an email from Gina Avalos, police media relations manager. “Although the victim resides in veteran housing on Camp Pendleton, OPD has assumed investigative responsibility for this case.”
Avalos noted that scams targeting seniors are common, and the police department continues to remind the public to check in regularly with older family members and loved ones – especially concerning unexpected financial or technology-related requests.
“While we have not identified a specific local trend, these types of scams occur frequently and can take many forms,” she stated.
The Eberhardts are hoping the police can check the cameras around Wendy’s to identify the courier who took the money from their father, a Vietnam-era Marine veteran who underwent hip surgery over the summer and a recent hernia surgery just before the scam happened.
“These types of scams are heartbreaking. We urge all consumers to ignore phone, text or internet requests to move money or gain access to their computer or bank accounts. Banks and legitimate companies won’t make these requests, but scammers will,” a statement from the Chase spokesperson read.
Amanda Eberhardt said the incident has greatly impacted her father, who blames himself for falling for the scam. The incident has also triggered his post-traumatic stress disorder caused by wartime trauma.
While losing the money has created a lot of stress for the family, Amanda continues to assure her father that it’s not his fault.
Although the loss of funds have caused stress for the family, they remain grateful that neither of them were hurt and still have each other. They also hope to prevent other similar scams from happening to local veterans and civilians in the future.
“This happens frequently within our community to veterans and civilians alike, not just to old people,” she said. “These people who target these folks are heartless.”
She described her father as a kind man who likes to help his community, noting his recent volunteership with the Rotary Club of Carlsbad, which provides donated items including diapers, toys, and lightly used furniture to families on base through its Warriors Warehouse program.
The family has set up a GoFundMe account to help with ongoing costs.
Representatives from the County of San Diego have also reached out to the family with support.
Chase Bank shared the following security tips for customers:
- Do not respond to phone, text or internet requests for money or access to computer or bank accounts. Banks will never call, text or email asking for you to send money to yourself or anyone else to prevent fraud.
- If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from your bank, the best thing to do is hang up immediately and call your bank at the number on the back of your debit or credit card.
- A bank will never call and ask you to verify information about your account, but we may need to verify information when you call us.
- Consider adding a call protector app to your phone to flag calls that are likely scams. Set up a code word with your close circle and always confirm callers by contacting them back on a phone number you know to be theirs.
- Chase Credit Journey offers free credit and identity monitoring, including alerts to let you know if your personal information is exposed in a data breach or on the dark web. You don’t have to be a Chase customer to use it.
- If you feel you’ve been scammed, contact your bank to discuss how to best protect your banking information and verify recent transactions to ensure no fraudulent activity on your account. Report the incident to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint.
