CBS chief news correspondent Matt Gutman says he came dangerously close to draining nearly all of his bank account after being targeted by what he described as an “incredibly sophisticated” phone scam.
The veteran reporter recounted the alarming incident Friday afternoon after leaving a Bank of America branch in Los Angeles, California.
“I just got completely scammed,” Gutman, 48, said in a video posted to X.
According to Gutman, the ordeal began about an hour earlier when he received a call from someone claiming to work for the bank’s “fraud protection” department. The caller warned that there were concerns people were attempting to make illegal withdrawals from his account.
Gutman said the scammer was convincing and appeared to go to great lengths to make the call seem legitimate.
“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 said.
He said the caller then told him: “Listen, we suspect that there is significant fraud activity at the bank branch where you bank, and what we need you to do right now.”
Gutman added that the scheme felt even more believable because his family had recently dealt with suspicious activity involving his daughter’s account.
But it was the next step from the ‘scammer’ that immediately made him suspicious.
CBS chief news correspondent Matt Gutman shared a video on Friday afternoon detailing how he nearly emptied his entire bank account for an alleged phone scammer
‘And she told me, “Listen, we think there are two fraudsters at the bank, and they go by these aliases.” She gave me the names, and 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,”‘ Gutman said.
The person on the phone then told him that he would take that cash with him, and that ‘would trigger the fraudsters into action’ and ‘that’s how we’ll be able to catch them.’
Gutman shared how that made him feel ‘weird’ because he found it strange for a ‘regular citizen’ to do a police officer’s job.
Still, he went inside the bank, but as he did so, the alleged scammer made it clear that he couldn’t tell any employees of the suspected fraud ‘because they might be in on it.’
That immediately made Gutman turn back around and walk out of the bank empty-handed.
He added: ‘There is no way that this is possibly real, that anybody would use a regular civilian for a sting operation at a bank. And I am a journalist, and I have done scam stories so many times throughout my career, and I came so close to falling for it!’
The scam in itself was frightening, but Gutman said the scariest part would have been if he actually went through with it.
‘Now the most scary, and the dangerous part, is that I would have 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.
‘And I was told this happens all the time, and they either rob your car or they rob you,’ Gutman said.
The scam in itself was frightening, but Gutman said the scariest part would have been if he actually went through with it. He went on to thank the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and actual Bank of America employees for ‘helping me avert a potentially dangerous disaster’
Thankfully, he did not fall for the alleged scam, but Gutman said it did make him realize he isn’t as ‘savvy’ as he thought he was.
‘That should be a lesson, I guess, to all of us, you gotta be so careful, and some of these scams are incredibly sophisticated with people who clearly know what they are talking about and speak like they are in the profession.
‘I’m just blown away by how good that person was. I can’t get over this.’
He went on to thank the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the actual Bank of America employees for ‘helping me avert a potentially dangerous disaster.’
The Daily Mail contacted the LAPD and Bank of America for comment.
