Bravo host Andy Cohen tells how he became the victim of an impersonation scam that gave scammers access to control his bank account.
While specific details are limited, Cohen told host of NBC’s Today Show that he recently was the victim of a scam that he was duped by scammers with some pretty fortuitous timing. According to Cohen, he lost his debit card and scammers who posed as bank employees offered to help via a mix of phone calls and text messages.
During the scam, Cohen followed a scammer-provided link that involved having him log onto his online banking portal. Once the scammers had access to his account, they convinced Cohen to make a number of large money transfers.
The scammers also somehow activated call forwarding on Cohen’s mobile phone so that any inbound calls from the bank would be rerouted to the scammers.
Once Cohen went to a physical bank was he able to understand what really transpired and the severity of the situation.
This story has many parallels with banking fraud scams where the communications are controlled using a medium where the victim believes the impersonated identity of the fraudster is real. It’s only when the victim uses another medium does the reality come to light. In Cohen’s case, it was too late.
Organizations looking to avoid being victims of digital fraud need to educate users on how these scams work through new-school security awareness training and create processes to check the validity of inbound communications claiming to be a financial authority.
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