CBS journalist reveals he nearly fell victim to ‘dangerous’ phone scam

Matt Gutman said the scammers seemed to know a lot about him and his bank account

CBS chief correspondent Matt Gutman has opened up about a "very scary" phone scam he nearly fell for, warning others to beware of "remarkably sophisticated" fraudsters. Gutman, 48, who joined the network in January of this year after two decades at ABC, detailed the incident over the weekend in a video on X. "I just got completely scammed," the Emmy-winning journalist revealed. He shared that he had received a call from someone "claiming to be from fraud protection at my bank," informing him that they suspected people were trying to "illegally withdraw" money from his account.

"This person gave me a name, they gave me a badge ID," the 48 Hours lead correspondent said. "They seemed to know so much about me, about my bank account." Gutman — who said he had recently dealt with suspicious activity on both his and his daughter's accounts — said the scammer instructed him to go to his local branch to withdraw everything from his bank account.

He was told the withdrawal would "intercept" the fraudsters and lead to their arrest. While he initially found it "a little weird" to use a "regular citizen for something that seems like a law enforcement issue," he ultimately agreed to go into his bank. He was also told that he could not "tell anybody at the bank that this is happening because they might be in on it."

"So I go to the teller, and I start doing the thing, and I'm like, 'There is no way that this is possibly real, that anybody would use a regular civilian for a sting operation at a bank,'" Gutman said, adding, "I'm a journalist, and I have done scam stories so many times throughout my career, and I came so close to falling for it." He pointed out that the scariest and "most dangerous part" was that he would have 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."

"And I was told that this happens all the time, and then they either rob your car or they rob you," he noted. "So a very scary experience happening to someone who thinks at least that they are savvy — I'm not as savvy as I think I am. And that should be a lesson to all of us: you gotta be so careful, and 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."

Gutman admitted that he was "blown away by how good that person was. I can't get over this." In the video's caption, he thanked the LAPD and his local Bank of American branch "for helping me avert a potentially dangerous disaster."