Andy Cohen revealed he was hoodwinked out of “a lot of money” after a fraudster duped him into handing over his personal details.
The “Watch What Happens Live” host, 55, said he received a phone call about a potential fraud on his bank account, and he offered up his information believing it was related to a debit card he recently lost.
“Someone called saying they were fraud alert from my bank,” he said on an episode of his Daddy Diaries podcast last week.
“Then [they] asked for my Apple ID and password. And I was like, ‘OK, this never happens,’” Cohen went on.
By the time he “bailed out,” the scammers already had the information they needed.
“I had already logged into my bank app, and I think somehow, my logging in through whatever this site was gave them access to my bank app,” he explained.
The “New Year’s Eve Live” host also noted that the fraudsters had hacked the caller ID system, so the name of Cohen’s bank appeared when they dialed him.
“They were naming credits that I had made — the charges — because they clearly had access to my account,” he recalled.
“What I should have said is, ‘Can I call you back?’ Or what I should have maybe said is, ‘I’m gonna go to my bank and handle this.’”
Cohen was on the phone with the hackers “for an hour and 10 minutes,” and later saw “these people wired out of two accounts that I have a lot of money.”
They had also scammed Cohen — unknowingly — into setting up call forwarding, so he never received the calls from his bank inquiring about the large sum of the transfers.
However, the reality TV honcho “in the process of trying to get [his] money back.”
“Part of my advice for people is that if something is happening, just go to your bank branch,” he 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.”
