Andy Cohen Was Scammed Out Of A Lot Money, And Here's How It Happened
Andy Cohen was scammed out of a lot of money, and he shared the story on his Daddy Diaries podcast.
The audio was posted on TikTok:
For those who can't watch the TikTok, let me transcribe the story for you...
"I got scammed by someone calling saying they were fraud alert from my bank," he said. "I did lose a card, and I put in for it, and I got an email saying, 'There might be fraud on your account,' and I was like, 'Oh, this is attached to the card I lost.'"
"I logged into my bank account, and it asked me for my Apple ID and password, and I was like, 'OK, this never happens.' So I bailed, but I had already logged into my bank app. I think logging into this site gave them access to my bank app."
"I leave the dentist, I get a call, and it shows up as the bank's name, and they're like 'it's fraud alert.' They were naming credits and charges I had made because they clearly had access to my account."
"What I should have done is say, 'Can I call you back?' or 'Can I go to the bank and handle this." I [ended up] staying on the line with this woman for an hour and 10 minutes. We were going through charges, and it was going on and on."'
"At one point, she was like, 'I need you to enter into your phone these numbers.' I went to the keypad, and I entered a bunch of numbers, and what came onto my screen was this screen that said I had set up call and message forwarding on my phone."
"She said, 'Oh, ignore that.' So I said, 'OK.' She's like, 'Someone is trying to place a charge on your card at a Walmart in Minneapolis. Do you know this person?' I said no. She said, 'Do you want us to prosecute?' And what they told me at the bank was that they will never ask you if you want to prosecute; they just do."
"She says, 'I have a few more things to do. We're going to call you back in 30 minutes.' I said, "Great, call me back.' I never got a callback."
"Then I started calling fraud alert, and they're asking for my debit card number, which I didn't have because my card was gone. They said, 'We will put you in a queue and call you back.' What I didn't realize was that all of my calls were being forwarded to the scammer."
"Now, last night, I'm getting messages that things are happening in my account, and I'm kind of freaking out. I go to the bank the next day, and these people wired out of two accounts A LOT of money."
"What happened was the bank called me to confirm the wires that these fraudsters did, and because I had set up call forwarding, the calls went to the scam artists, and they confirmed the wires," he finished.
Then, he offered advice to anyone who is ever in a similar position.
"My advice is that if something is happening, just go to your bank branch! And if you get emails, look very closely at the email address. It might say your bank's name, but click on the name, and the email address will appear, and you'll see that it's another address."
