It is so easy to fall victim to fraud and identity theft these days. Unfortunately, Bravo personality Andy Cohen knows this all too well. On the December 22, 2023, episode of his podcast Daddy Diaries, Andy opened up about his not-so-fun experience getting scammed.
Andy is speaking out so others don’t have to go through the mess he currently finds himself in. He is still working to get “a lot of money” back. He wouldn’t wish this experience on his worst enemy.
It all started when Andy lost his debit card and alerted his bank. He then got an email from someone claiming to be his bank. He started to login with that fraudulent email but things quickly started feeling off. "It asked for my Apple ID and password," Andy explained. "And I was like, 'OK, this never happens.'"
He stopped once he realized it looked fishy, but it was too late. "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. He was at an appointment at the time and hadn't even left before a scammer called him.
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The scammers made the call appear like it was coming from Andy’s bank. They messed with the caller ID system. "Someone called saying they were fraud alert from my bank," Andy went on to say. "They were naming credits that I had made — the charges — because they clearly had access to my account.”
Hindsight is 20/20. Andy wishes he would have done some things differently. "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,'" he mused. "Instead … I stayed on the line with this woman for an hour and 10 minutes."
The scammers were tricky and set up call and message forwarding for Andy. Because of this, he did not get any alerts. The scammers told Andy they would take care of everything and would call him back with the details. When they never did, Andy went into his bank in person.
Turns out the scammer diverted his calls for an extremely important reason. "These people wired out of two accounts that I have a lot of money," he explained. Andy is now "in the process of trying to get money back" and it is not easy.
Andy had to learn his lesson the hard way, but is sharing his experience in the hopes that others can avoid it. "Part of my advice for people is that if something is happening, just go to your bank branch," he stated. It is good to go directly to the source.
Andy’s advice came in two parts. "And when you get emails, look very closely at the email address,” he urged. “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."
