By Lynette Rice
Lynette Rice
Senior TV Writer
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July 11, 2026 5:26pm
Matt GutmanJamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Bob Woodruff Foundation
CBS News journalist Matt Gutman revealed via social media that he was the target of a phone scam that almost had him emptying his bank account.
“A very scary experience,” said Gutman. “I’m not as savvy as I think I am.”
In his July 10 posts, Gutman explained that a caller shared a name and a badge ID before saying someone was trying to illegally pull money from his bank account.
“They seemed to know so much about me, about my bank account,” said Gutman. “And then they said, ‘Listen, we suspect that there is significant fraud activity at the bank branch where you bank.”
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Gutman was instructed to go to his bank and withdraw all his cash. But the caller also warned that he should not explain to the tellers what he was doing because “we think there are two fraudsters at the bank, they go by these aliases. She gave me the names.”
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By withdrawing the cash, the caller said, “that will trigger the fraudsters into action. That’s how we will be able to catch them.”
Gutman beelined to his bank but soon realized how absurd it was that “anybody would use a regular civilian for a sting operation at a bank. 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.”
Gutman then imagined walking out of the bank 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 this happens all the time and they either rob your car or they rob you.”
Twitter Embed
I just got SCAMMED: a remarkably sophisticated phone scam that nearly had me pull the entire entirety of funds out of one bank account. Watch to see how it unfolded. And how dangerous it might possibly have been.
Huge shout out to the @lapdhq and the folks at the @bankofamerica… pic.twitter.com/y17xohZcBz
— Matt Gutman (@CBSMATTGUTMAN) July 10, 2026
Gutman then posted a subsequent message on July 11 saying he should have called the number on the back of his bank card. He admitted that he spent “over an hour” on the phone with the fraudster.
Twitter Embed
How NOT to fall for a "bank impersonation scam."
Three quick tips that could save your bank account and at the very least, a lot of time.
Read didn't lose money yesterday when I was the target of a sophisticated and very patient scammer but I lost time and it cost me a lot of… pic.twitter.com/eGe7Tpk0xs
— Matt Gutman (@CBSMATTGUTMAN) July 11, 2026
Gutman joined CBS News in January. He is based in Los Angeles.
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- T.V. Guy on July 11, 2026 6:08 pm
Great opportunity for Gutman to do in depth investigation on how deep and complex these scams operate. Good for viewers and network alike.
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Richard Ginn on July 11, 2026 6:41 pm
Watch some of the youtube channels like Scammer Payback, Jim Browning, and Kitboga…
They deal with stuff like this.
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Anonymous on July 11, 2026 8:40 pm
YouTubers are infinitely smarter than literally anyone on television.
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BarW on July 11, 2026 5:36 pm
(gasp) Oh my goodness!!!!
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