Andy Cohen Reveals Losing Lots of Money to a Credit Card Phishing Scam

No one is exempt from bogus credit card scams and that includes American television presenter Andy Cohen. During his December 22 podcast, Daddy Diaries, the 55-year-old celebrity shared the unfortunate events that led to a costly and alarming financial nightmare.

After purchasing a wig from Kim Zolciak, he was sent an email and called by someone who pretended to work from his bank’s fraud alert department. While narrating the incident to his co-host John Hill, he said, “I did lose a card, and I put in for [a replacement for] it, and I got an email saying that there might be fraud on your account, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is attached to the card I lost.”

The CNN New Year’s Eve host revealed that he at first felt open and safe as he provided his financial information because the scammers told him details about his recent purchases. The people behind the scam were able to name recent charges because they seemed to already have access to Andy’s account.

The What’s Happening Live host admitted that he logged onto the site indicated in the email. However, alarm bells started ringing when he was asked for his Apple ID and password.

Trying to sort out what happened, Andy shared that he had already logged into his bank’s app. Somehow, he thought that logging onto the website he clicked on gave the scammers the ability to access his banking app.

Andy’s call with the scammers lasted for an hour and 10 minutes. During that time, they convinced him to set up the call forwarding app on his phone. The scammer told him, “I need you to enter these numbers into your phone.” Andy followed their instructions and entered several numbers that he was given. He later disocvered that the process activated his call and message forwarding option.

Realizing the possibility that he was scammed, Andy went to his bank the next day where he found out that large sums of money had been transferred out of his accounts. He was unaware of the transactions that were being made because all the calls and messages were being forwarded to another number.

All the calls to confirm the transfer and any one-time PIN (OTP) verifications were forwarded to the scammers’ numbers. Of course, they confirmed the withdrawals on his behalf.

Though Andy didn’t reveal exactly how much he lost, he did caution his audience that fraudsters can contact anybody and make it sound like everything is legit. He shared, “Part of my advice for people is that if something is happening, just go to your bank branch.”

Andy added, “And when you get emails, look very closely at the email address. It might say your bank’s name, but click on the name, and then the email address will appear, and you’ll see that it’s some other random address.”

Right now, Andy is in the process of attempting to get all his money back.