560-Pound Man Says He’s Riding Across Country To Save His Life -- But Is He Scamming America?

Self-proclaimed “Fat Guy” Eric was 560 lbs., and unhappy with his weight so he says he decided to do something unexpected -- embark upon an epic bike ride across America.

His purported goals? Lose weight, write a book and rescue his failing relationship with his wife.

“I’m on the road six or seven [hours] a day. Not necessarily pedaling the whole day because I take a lot of breaks. I can’t help it,” Eric, who has traveled from Massachusetts to Florida, where he’s remained for the past few months, tells Dr. Phil in a new interview, airing Monday, February 8.

As he began, Eric launched an online fundraising campaign, he says to support his coast-to-coast ride, and his mission soon went viral. As a result, people donated more than $14,000 to help him pay for equipment and travel expenses. But not only did the money roll in -- so did the critics, who are claiming Eric is scamming America into paying for his vacation across the country.

“Eric is a digital panhandler. He’s putting an emotional gun to people’s heads and robbing them blind,” says one of Eric’s biggest critics Charles, a former friend of Eric who now insists Eric is using the crowd-funded money to spend “weeks at a time in hotels.”

“Eric is a lazy scammer,” adds Dagny, another one of Eric’s most outspoken critics on social media. “This seems to have turned into more of a crowd-funded vacation.”

Eric squares off with the people he calls his “haters,” in the video above. This episode of Dr. Phil airs Monday. Check here to see where you can watch.

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