Bernie Madoff stole Cliff Bernie’s life savings. But customers have come out of the woodwork to support his family business.

Twenty years ago, at the advice of a good friend, Cliff Bernie’s parents began investing their nest egg with an East Coast asset-management firm that the friend promised “was doing things differently than other people do it.”

In the last two months, it’s become increasingly clear exactly how “differently” the investor trusted with their money — Bernard Madoff — was in fact doing things: so differently that Cliff Bernie has now lost the bulk of his savings and has been forced to shutter the family fabric business his father started in San Mateo in 1957.

“It’s been awful,” Bernie said.

Two months ago, 70-year-old Wall Street giant Madoff was charged with masterminding the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, a fraud believed to be to the tune of $50 billion.

Last week, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court released a list of thousands of Madoff’s clients, including dozens from across the Bay Area and at least 15 clients from San Mateo County.

Cliff Bernie said he calculates his personal losses at $1.7 million — plus his family’s business.

In the last two years, as the housing market has sank, the business has not been profitable, and Cliff Bernie has subsidized it with income from the Madoff investment he inherited when his parents passed away.

Now that he no longer has the Madoff money to draw from, he said he doesn’t see how the business can stay afloat — barring a sudden turnaround in the economy and renewed demand for decorative fabrics.

Like many others, Bernie blames the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for not responding to warnings about the firm.

“I put this in the SEC’s lap,” he said.

Though he faces losing his family’s business and the bulk of his fortune, Cliff Bernie said he’s working to keep his losses in perspective.

“After all, people are getting hosed everywhere right now,” he said.

People across the globe are feeling the financial gut-punch of losing the savings they had invested with Bernard Madoff’s asset management firm.

Hillsborough resident Charles Tuckman is not one of them.

In the 1990s, now-retired tax attorney Tuckman invested about $60,000 of his retirement account money with Madoff’s firm.

“He was paying too much interest on it, and I wasn’t happy with that,” he said.

Tuckman, it turned out, was right to find the high rate of return too good to be true — Madoff has since reportedly admitted to running his business as “a giant Ponzi scheme,” paying investors “with money that wasn’t there.”

Tuckman attributes his wise move to “luck,” but his wife has a different perspective on it.

“I think that shows how smart he is,” she said.

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