Recently we reported on the story of Charlotte Cowles, a financial columnist at New York Magazine, and how she ended up losing $50,000 to a complicated thriller-like scam. Now let’s look at another well-known name who has shared their experience of becoming the victim to fraudsters’ schemes.

Andy Cohen Credit Card Scam: What Happened?

Andy Cohen is a television presenter and popular media personality. Cohen was in the news earlier in the year because he had fallen victim to a common type of banking imposter scam. To his credit, Cohen bravely shared his story of how it happened and what went wrong.

It started when Cohen lost his debit card. Soon after, he received an email purporting to be from his bank, which asked him to log into his account. This was unfortunately a fake phishing page. The next day, Cohen was called by the scammers. Due to the tactic of disguised caller ID, the name of the caller matched the name of the bank, and Cohen was tricked into believing it was a bank employee on the phone.

Once establishing this trust, the scammers were able to attain personal information from Cohen, enabling them to carry out several large bank transfers from his account. The next day, feeling something was amiss, Cohen visited his bank in person — but it was too late. The bank informed him that several large transfers had just occurred.

How to Protect Yourself

Scams today are very sophisticated, and it’s often difficult to know when one is occurring — to tell truth from lie. In the words of Andy Cohen himself:

“If you feel something is happening, just go to your bank branch […] And when you get emails, look very closely at the email address they’re coming from. It might say your bank’s name, but click on the name, and then the email address will come up, and you’ll see that it’s some other random address.”

As for the time-pressure tactics that scammers use as part of social engineering, Cohen reminds you: “Nothing needs to happen now — a lot of times these people call and say, ‘Time is of the essence, you have to do this now. Don’t do that.”

March 7 was National Slam the Scam Day. Head over to our article, Slam the Scam with Trend Micro’s Top Tips!, where you’ll find other scam types to be on the lookout for — as well as top safety tips that will protect you from scams like the one Cohen experienced. Be safe, folks!

Protecting Your Identity and Personal Info

Trend Micro is here to have your back in 2024. We would encourage readers to head over to our new ID Protection platform, which has been designed to meet the security and privacy threats we now all face.

With ID Protection, you can:

1. Check to see if your data (email, phone number, password, credit card) has been exposed in a leak, or is up for grabs on the dark web;
2. Secure your social media accounts with our Social Media Account Monitoring tool, with which you’ll receive a personalized report;
3. Create the strongest tough-to-hack password suggestions from our advanced AI (they’ll be safely stored in your Vault);
4. Enjoy a safer browsing experience, as Trend Micro checks websites and prevents trackers.
5. Receive comprehensive remediation and insurance services, with 24/7 support.

Offering both free and paid services, ID Protection will ensure you have the best safeguards in place, with 24/7 support available to you through one of the world’s leading cybersecurity companies. Trend Micro is trusted by 8 of the top 10 Fortune 500 Companies — and we’ll have your back, too.

Why not give it a go today? As always, we hope this article has been an interesting and/or useful read. If so, please do SHARE it with family and friends to help keep the online community secure and informed — and consider leaving a like or comment below. Here’s to a secure 2024!