Bravo fans know Andy Cohen for being lighthearted and whimsical on his show, Watch What Happens Live. However, just like many people all over the world, he recently fell victim to a pretty serious financial scam.
The host and executive recently opened up on a podcast about how he had multiple bank accounts drained and exactly how the scam artists were able to pull off the scheme.
Bank fraud can happen in any number of ways. Unfortunately, scammers have become well-versed in how to drain people’s bank accounts while pretending to be bank employees. This is what happened to Andy.
According to Collider, Andy was at the dentist when a call came through from his bank that said there had been fraud detected. Andy felt that it all sounded legit.
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Andy said, “And I was like, ‘Oh, this is attached to the card that I lost.’ He then asked me for my Apple ID and password, and I was like, this had never happened before.”
Andy then logged into his banking app, and this is how he thinks the scammers got access to his bank login. After that, the person on the other end of the call started to name recent transactions, which is normal.
According to Andy, “They clearly had access to my account, and I was like, ‘Yes these are real.’ What I should have said was, ‘I’ll call you back,’ or say, ‘I’m going to go to my bank and handle this.’”
After a while, the woman who claimed to be from his bank’s fraud department requested that he enter a few digits into his phone. However, this was a call forwarding command, and Andy made sure to screenshot it, but the lady on the phone told him to ignore that.
They then told Andy they would take care of the charges and call him back within 30 minutes, which never happened. Ultimately, what happened was that the scammers were able to confirm the fraudulent transactions because Andy had forwarded his calls to them. In the end, they transferred large sums of money out of two of his accounts.
He went to the bank in person the next day to start the process of getting his money back.
This shows just how many ways fraudsters have attempted to steal money from people. Hopefully, Andy’s story can be a cautionary tale.
