Top CBS News Correspondent Explains How Scammers Almost Got Him to Empty His Bank Account

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CBS News correspondent Matt Gutman explained on Friday how scammers almost talked him into emptying out his bank account for them.

In a video posted on his X/Twitter account, Gutman revealed that he recently received a call from someone claiming to be from a “fraud protection” department at his bank. The person identified themselves by name and even gave Gutman a badge ID.

“They seemed to know so much about me, about my bank account,” Gutman said. “And then they said, ‘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–.’ We went through all the accounts, and we actually had some suspicious activity recently in my daughter’s account.”

When the caller walked Gutman through the next steps, however, he began to suspect something else was going on. He continued:

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” — which wasn’t that much money at this point — “and take it with you so you have it in cash and that’ll trigger the fraudsters into action. That’s how we’ll be able to catch them.” I thought, OK, that’s a little weird. Why would you use a regular citizen for something that seems like a law enforcement issue? But I said, you know, OK, and I went in there and she said, “But you can’t tell anybody at the bank that this is happening because they might be in on it.”

At that point, Gutman finally caught on to the scam. Still, he was taken aback by how legitimate the whole operation appeared at first.

“You’ve got to be so careful,” Gutman said, “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.”

Watch the clip above.

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