CBS Journalist Matt Gutman Reveals He Nearly Lost Thousands in Bank Phone Scam: ‘Very Scary’

The journalist warned others to watch out for “incredibly sophisticated” scams after he was almost fooled

CBS News chief correspondent Matt Gutman has revealed how he almost withdrew thousands of dollars savings after falling for a phone scam in Los Angeles.

The journalist, 48, who considers himself “savvy” and said he had worked on many scam stories throughout his career, said he came very close to emptying his account after he received a phone call from someone claiming to be from the fraud protection department at his bank.

In a video posted on X on Friday, July 10, he explained that the woman told him they suspected hackers were trying to illegally take money out of his account.

“This person gave me a name, they gave me a badge ID. They seemed to know so much about me, about my bank account and then they said, ‘Listen, we suspect 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 of the accounts and we actually had had some suspicious activity recently in my daughter’s account,” he said in the clip.

The woman then told Gutman there were two fraudsters at his bank and gave him two names. Things took an alarming turn when the caller came up with a plan to catch them.

“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 [she said], ‘Take it with you so you have it in cash and that’ll trigger the fraudsters into action, that’s how we will be able to catch them,’ ” he said.

The reporter started to catch on and thought the plan was “a little weird,” but traveled to his local bank branch.

She then told Gutman that he could not tell any staff members at the bank about their plan because “they might be in on it,” which was the final red flag.

He told his 59,000 followers: “So I go to the teller and I start doing the thing and I’m like, there is no way this is possibly real, that anybody would use a regular civilian for a sting operation at a bank.”

The final instruction from the woman set off alarm bells and he realized the call was not authentic.

“Now, the most scary and the dangerous part is that I would’ve 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,” he added.

Gutman said he was told that this happens “all the time” and in most cases, the fraudsters will either “rob your car or they rob you.”

He described the ordeal as a “very scary experience” and told others to be careful.

“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 am just blown away by how good that person was, I can’t get over this,” he said.

Gutman then thanked the Los Angeles Police Department and the staff at Bank of America for their help in averting “a potentially dangerous disaster.”