CBS News journalist Matt Gutman claims he nearly lost his entire life savings over an “incredibly sophisticated” phone scam.
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In a post on X, Gutman explained that while he considers himself “savvy” and was well aware of such scams, he almost emptied his account after receiving a phone call from someone who claimed to be from his bank’s fraud department.
The journalist shared that the woman told him the bank suspected hackers were trying to illegally gain access to his account.
“This person gave me a name, they gave me a badge ID. They seemed to know so much about me, about my bank account,” he explained. “And then they said, ‘Listen, we suspect there is significant fraud activity at the bank branch where you bank and what we need you to do right now.’ We went through all of the accounts and we actually had had some suspicious activity recently in my daughter’s account.”
The woman also told Gutman there were two hackers and gave him their names. However, things took a turn when the woman came up with a plan to catch the “criminals” she was telling him about.
“Then she said, ‘What we need you to do in order to intercept these fraudsters is to go into the bank and withdraw everything from your bank account,’” he recalled. “Which wasn’t that much money at this point. And [she said], ‘Take it with you so you have it in cash and that’ll trigger the fraudsters into action, that’s how we will be able to catch them.’”
Things Got “A Little Weird” for Gutman
Gutman said he started to catch and immediately thought the plan was “a little weird.” Despite the weird feeling, the reporter traveled to his local bank branch. The final clue that the whole thing was a scam came when the woman told him not to tell any staff members at the bank about the plan.
“They might be in on it,” the woman alleged told him.
Gutman then shared, “So I go to the teller and I start doing the thing and I’m like, there is no way this is possibly real, that anybody would use a regular civilian for a sting operation at a bank.”
Regarding the final instructions he received, the journalist said, “Now, the most scary and the dangerous part is that I would’ve been walking around with thousands of dollars in cash at a place known to those scammers because they directed me to my local bank branch.”
Gutman was told that the scams happen “all the time” and in most cases, the fraudsters will either “rob your car, or they rob you.”
He then added that the situation was a “very scary experience” and warned others to be careful.