CBC Journalist gets roped into ‘sting operation’ to catch frauds at his bank. He soon realizes it’s a ‘dangerous disaster’ designed for him

CBS News chief correspondent Matt Gutman said he came very close to withdrawing thousands of dollars from his bank account after receiving what he described as a highly sophisticated phone scam. Gutman shared his experience in a video posted on X, warning his 56,900 followers about the dangers of such schemes. The journalist, who said he considers himself “savvy” and has covered scam stories throughout his career, said he nearly fell for it anyway.

According to Gutman, the caller claimed to be from his bank’s fraud protection department and told him that hackers were allegedly trying to illegally withdraw money from his account. The caller gave a name and a badge ID, and appeared to know details about Gutman and his bank account, including what he described as recent suspicious activity in his daughter’s account.

Gutman said the caller then told him there were two fraudsters operating at his local bank branch and provided two names for them. He added that the caller then asked him to go to the branch and withdraw all the money from his account in cash, claiming this would trigger the fraudsters and help catch them.

The scam unfolded step by step, and Gutman said even he almost didn’t catch it in time

Gutman said he found the plan “a little weird” but still made his way to the bank branch. He said before he went inside, the caller gave him one more instruction: he could not tell any bank staff about what he was doing because, she said, “they might be in on it.” That was what Gutman described as the final red flag.

“So I go to the teller and I start doing the thing and I’m like, there is no way this is possibly real, that anybody would use a regular civilian for a sting operation at a bank,” Gutman said in the video.

He said he did not complete the withdrawal. Speaking about the potential danger, Gutman said, “The most scary and the dangerous part is that I would’ve 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.” This type of scheme, where phone scams escalate into in-person cash pickups, has been used to target victims across the country.

Gutman said he was told by others that this type of scam happens “all the time,” and that the fraudsters typically either “rob your car or they rob you” once the target leaves the bank with cash. He called the experience “a very scary experience” and said it shook him despite his background in reporting on similar schemes.

“I am a journalist and I’ve done scam stories so many times throughout my career and I came so close to falling for it,” he said, adding that the incident was “a lesson, I guess, to all of us.” Gutman said what struck him most was the level of sophistication the caller displayed. 

“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. I am just blown away by how good that person was, I can’t get over this,” he said. In some reported cases, victims only noticed unauthorized charges disappearing from their accounts after significant sums had already been taken.

In the X post accompanying the video, Gutman wrote that the scam “nearly had me pull the entire entirety of funds out of one bank account” and thanked the Los Angeles Police Department and the staff at his Bank of America branch for helping him “avert a potentially dangerous disaster.”

In closing his video, Gutman urged viewers to stay alert. “I just hope this doesn’t happen to you, but beware, these people are out there and they are good,” he said. He did not share further details about whether any investigation into the caller is ongoing, and it is not clear whether the individuals behind the call have been identified.