Bravo’s Andy Cohen Reveals Red Flags He Missed As Scammers Duped Him, Stole His Money

Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press  Tue, January 16, 2024

One can hear about a long list of too-trusting Grandmas, job-hunters hit by scams, widows hurt when looking for love, and so many others who sadly lost big money to crafty cyber predators. But then, maybe, it really resonates when a pop culture celebrity who rang in the New Year with millions watching CNN talks about seeing money vanish from his own bank account.

Lots. Of. Money.

Andy Cohen, the high-energy, buzz-generating executive producer of the "Real Housewives" franchise and co-host with Anderson Cooper of CNN's New Year's Eve live coverage from Time's Square, has gone public with how he lost his debit card one day, received what claimed to be email from his bank's fraud department another day and then shockingly discovered shortly afterward that cyber crooks made off with his money using three wire transfers out two of his bank accounts.

"When money is wired, it's out the door and gone," Cohen told me via email.

"Typically," he told me, "banks will not return money if you've given someone access to your account and then the transfers have been completed."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD9gt1VJ2kM

Scammers pretend to be all sorts of people, including bankers

Cohen told his story of how he became a victim of a sophisticated, bank-related imposter fraud on his podcast, "Daddy Diaries" and later on the "Today" show. It's a scam that has hurt plenty of consumers — and will no doubt hit more unless tighter protections are put in place and consumers stop responding to emails, texts and phone calls that appear to be legitimate but aren't.

The potential dollars lost to these types of scams are far greater than money that can be lost when scammers demand that someone go out and buy gift cards to handle a problem, which is still an ongoing scam.

In 2022, consumers reported losing nearly $8.8 billion to all sorts of fraud, up 30% from 2021, according to data released in February 2023 by the Federal Trade Commission. Investment scams ranked No. 1 but imposter scams came in second place with losses of $2.6 billion reported, up from $2.4 billion in 2021.

Based on fraud reports associated with various types of payment methods, consumers reported losing $311 million via wire transfer in 2022 and $1.587 billion via bank transfer or payment. By contrast, money reported lost to scammers through gift cards was $228 million.

A year ago, I wrote about how scammers pretend to be from your bank to drain your savings by impersonating the so-called fraud department from banks and credit unions.

While consumers must take steps to protect themselves, the level of ongoing fraud indicates a deeper, much broader problem with what I'd call cracks in the financial services system that crooks can readily hack. Clearly, much more work needs to be done to stop bad actors, too.

The scam that Andy Cohen encountered even appears to have added a new layer — where somehow the bad guy enables call forwarding to prevent the victim from even getting a phone call from their bank, according to Teresa Murray, who directs the Consumer Watchdog office for U.S. PIRG, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Some bank-related scams, Murray said, have evolved to the point where criminals start out by already having some information about a victim, including their name, phone number and where they bank. You could end up dealing with legitimate phone calls and phony texts, which direct you to authorize activity when you think you're trying to stop fraud.

We're wired to act fast, and crooks know it

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https://news.yahoo.com/finance/news/bravo-andy-cohen-reveals-red-154920579.html