CBS News journalist Matt Gutman revealed via social media that he was the target of a phone scam that almost had him emptying his bank account.
“A very scary experience,” said Gutman. “I’m not as savvy as I think I am.”
In his July 10 posts, Gutman explained that a caller shared a name and a badge ID before saying someone was trying to illegally pull money from his bank account.
“They seemed to know so much about me, about my bank account,” said Gutman. “And then they said, ‘Listen, we suspect that there is significant fraud activity at the bank branch where you bank.”
Gutman was instructed to go to his bank and withdraw all his cash. But the caller also warned that he should not explain to the tellers what he was doing because “we think there are two fraudsters at the bank, they go by these aliases. She gave me the names.”
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By withdrawing the cash, the…
Identity theft is the “foundational” fraud upon which many other crimes are built. It involves the unauthorized acquisition and use of a person’s personal identifying information (PII), such as an ID number, Social Security number, or passport details.
- How it works: Fraudsters obtain PII through data breaches, mail theft, or “social engineering” (tricking people into revealing details). Once they have this data, they can open new bank accounts, apply for credit cards or loans, and even receive medical treatment under your name.
- Synthetic Identity Fraud: A sophisticated variation where criminals combine real and fabricated information to create a completely new, “synthetic” person. This is particularly difficult to detect because there is no single victim to report the suspicious activity initially.