CBS News journalist Matt Gutman revealed via social media that he was the target of a phone scam that almost had him emptying his bank account.
“A very scary experience,” said Gutman. “I’m not as savvy as I think I am.”
In his July 10 posts, Gutman explained that a caller shared a name and a badge ID before saying someone was trying to illegally pull money from his bank account.
“They seemed to know so much about me, about my bank account,” said Gutman. “And then they said, ‘Listen, we suspect that there is significant fraud activity at the bank branch where you bank.”
Gutman was instructed to go to his bank and withdraw all his cash. But the caller also warned that he should not explain to the tellers what he was doing because “we think there are two fraudsters at the bank, they go by these aliases. She gave me the names.”
By withdrawing the cash, the caller said, “that will trigger the fraudsters into action. That’s how we will be able to catch them.”
Gutman beelined to his bank but soon realized how absurd it was that “anybody would use a regular civilian for a sting operation at a bank. I’m a journalist and I have done scam stories so many times throughout my career and I came so close to falling for it.”
Gutman then imagined walking out of the bank with thousands of dollars in cash “at a place known to those scammers because they directed me to my local bank branch and I was told this happens all the time and they either rob your car or they rob you.”
Gutman then posted a subsequent message on July 11 saying he should have called the number on the back of his bank card. He admitted that he spent “over an hour” on the phone with the fraudster.
Gutman joined CBS News in January. He is based in Los Angeles.
