Paul Schendel, 52-year-old Houston, Texas father of three, passed away from a heart attack just one day after Wells Fargo told him that he wouldn’t be reimbursed $6,800 that was stolen from him in a very sophisticated banking con. The death, which was heart-stopping, happened in June 2025, and it serves as a stark reminder of the lethal risks of very advanced financial cons on vulnerable victims.
Schendel wasDisabled by an injury to his back and battled a variety of health issues related to diabetes, his sister Karen Schendel said. “He had all the bad side effects of diabetes there are,” she said in an interview with FOX 26 Houston. Even with already fragile health, Karen attributes the economic ruination and stress precipitated by losing all of his lifetime savings as directly causing his death. “I have no doubt it played a part,” she said.
The elaborate swindle that stole it all
The elaborate ruse started when Schendel got a phone call from what showed up on his caller ID as Wells Fargo. The caller was very sophisticated in that he recognized his account information and told him about fraud, and the call sounded genuine. This is all business-as-usual for contemporary bank impersonation scams, which have proliferated in the last couple of years.
After the telephone call, a woman went into Schendel’s house pretending to be a Wells Fargo security officer. In a sly attempt to look official, she destroyed his debit card and left with the fragments, telling him to come back to the bank the following day for a new card. This is physical evidence that gave some degree of credibility and led Schendel to believe he was working with official bank security.
When Schendel went to a Wells Fargo bank the next day, he learned the heartbreaking truth. Bank staff told him that Wells Fargo never calls customers regarding missing such a problem and never sends a representative to pick up cards. The $6,800 in his account was gone, and bank staff told him he was unlikely to be reimbursed.
The deadly connection between financial stress and heart health
Schendel’s untimely death the next day after hearing about his permanent monetary loss refers to a highly documented medical fact: the connection between severe monetary strain and heart disease. According to a study by JAMA Internal Medicine, patients with severe monetary strain had a 61% higher risk of dying over six months of suffering from a heart attack.
A subsequent analysis uncovered even more appalling statistics, demonstrating that deep financial distress is linked to 13-fold greater risks of experiencing a heart attack. 17% of heart attack patients with “severe financial strain” passed away six months post-hospital discharge, compared to just 7% when there was no financial strain.
The shock of sudden loss of finances can trigger physiological responses that assault cardiovascular health with direct intensity. Financial stress has been connected with elevated blood pressure, anxiety, depression, and cardiac arrest in extreme situations. For a person like Schendel, who also had to deal with diabetes and diabetic complications, extra stress induced by losing all his savings for a lifetime might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Part of a growing epidemic
Schendel’s case is the third Wells Fargo impersonation scam FOX 26 Houston has reported, where fake bank officials come to victims’ homes and collect cut-up debit cards. Sophistication and numbers of such scams are consistent with larger national trends in financial fraud.
Based on Federal Trade Commission statistics, impersonation scams have increased 148% year on year, making them the most popular type of fraud among crooks. In 2024 alone, Americans lost over $12.5 billion to fraud, a 25% hike compared to last year. Financial institutions received 21% of all impersonation scams, making bank customers their most vulnerable targets.
Sophistication of such frauds is growing exponentially, with criminals leveraging artificial intelligence to build more realistic impersonations and caller ID spoofing to appear authoritative. Bank impersonation scams grew twentyfold between 2019 and 2022 by the FDIC’s records, illustrating the explosive rise of the crime.
Warning signs and prevention
Banking institutions and fraud specialists point to several key warning signs that can prevent such tragedies. Red flags are sudden contacts from supposed bank representatives, urgent demands that a response be provided immediately, and anyone who asks for personal information or for cards to be destroyed. Any real banks will never contact customers to ask for sensitive details or to send representatives to collect physical cards.
In a bittersweet development, Wells Fargo ultimately reversed its decision and returned the $6,800 to Schendel’s account after his death. The bank also reimbursed another victim, Scott Merovitch, who lost $20,000 in a similar scheme. Wells Fargo stated that after “thorough investigations and after receiving additional information,” they reached resolutions for both customers.
The family believes that media attention from FOX 26’s reporting played a crucial role in securing the reimbursement. However, the victory came too late for Paul Schendel, whose life was cut short by the devastating impact of financial fraud.
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