Andy Cohen Fleeced by Hackers

Creeper

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Not sure if everyone knows who Andy Cohen is, but he is the creator producer of all those housewives shows on Bravo. I am sure he is loaded, but he lost his debit card and apparently hackers got it, spear phished him and stole a large amount of money from him. There are some great lessons to learn from his experience.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle...t-card-scam-heres-what-he-learned/ar-AA1mKLwT

Never click on a link in an email unless you verify the sender and the URL represented by the link is real and legitimate. If it is something you feel you need to click on look at the URL behind the link. If it is an email from your bank, then check the sender address to make your your banks domain is in the link. i.e. bank.com\something. If not manually open your bank's web page without clicking the link and log in. Or, call your bank to verify the message is real.

If they call you, banks will always verify your identity. They will never ask you for a password, or other codes or to manipulate any settings on your phone. If they ask you to do something suspicious, then ask them to verify who they are. I tried this once and they gave me a hard time. But as I explained to them, how do I know who they are when they ask me for my SSN, or other identifying information to identify me? Tell them you will call them back on the number on the back of your credit or debit card to conduct whatever business they called you about. Somehow the hackers got Andy to forward calls from his bank to them. He is light on details on how this happened but I assume because it was incredibly stupid on his part and he is avoiding the embarrassment.

I don't think Andy is telling the whole story because bank fraud departments are very sophisticated these days. A good bank would not execute these transactions, which we assume were large transfers to overseas banks. They would immediately suspect something was not right about it. A very good bank would require you to come to a branch and verify your identity before transferring large amounts of money. And, banks are required to report transactions over $10,000 to the federal government. Somehow, Andy's bank allowed these transfers to go through.

If I was Andy and this happened to me I would find a new bank. I would tell my new bank I want transfer limits on my accounts. Anything over the limit requires him to visit a branch. I have my account with my bank set up so I get an alert any time there is a withdrawal from by bank account. If it is not me, I know it immediately.

I bet everyone here knows this stuff, but make sure your family members do too, especially your parents if they are alive.

Depending on how long it took Andy to figure out he was swindled, the banks may still be able to recover some of the money. If the money went to US banks, he might have better luck. The FBI may be able to identify the thieves. If it went overseas to unfriendly countries, the money is gone.
 

1942willys

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so many of the email attempts are incredibly obvious. Email that supposedly comes from FEDEX or UPS or WAMART or whatever and have email addressee that RIDICULOUSLY and OBVIOUSLY have NOTHING to do with them.
Yet so many fall for it.
A lot of dumb and naive people in the world
 

VaqueroTD

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Most frustrating part is I will finally get a clean email account and not have to worry about moving all of the fishing emails somewhere else. I will try and be as careful as possible who I give my real email. Never fails though, somewhere I have to put my real email down and they send it out to someone who sends it out to 1 million other people and eventually I get an email full of phishing attempts again and have to change addy again. They are getting ridiculously good though. They still haven‘t figured out how to make the sender look legit, but the subject and email itself sure do. Getting extremely clever too on what type of emails they send you. Eventually you get one about something you login regularly.
 

Runwildboys

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Most frustrating part is I will finally get a clean email account and not have to worry about moving all of the fishing emails somewhere else. I will try and be as careful as possible who I give my real email. Never fails though, somewhere I have to put my real email down and they send it out to someone who sends it out to 1 million other people and eventually I get an email full of phishing attempts again and have to change addy again. They are getting ridiculously good though. They still haven‘t figured out how to make the sender look legit, but the subject and email itself sure do. Getting extremely clever too on what type of emails they send you. Eventually you get one about something you login regularly.
Fortunately, a lot of the scammers are idiots, and misspell words. One of the first things I look for before opening an email is spelling and grammar. If there's a single mistake, no matter how insignificant it might seem, I don't open it.

If it's legit, and that important, they'll figure out a way to contact me.
 

Creeper

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Fortunately, a lot of the scammers are idiots, and misspell words. One of the first things I look for before opening an email is spelling and grammar. If there's a single mistake, no matter how insignificant it might seem, I don't open it.

If it's legit, and that important, they'll figure out a way to contact me.
I think the problem is, just because people think they are smart doesn't make it so. Andy Cohen created a money making monster for himself, but as his little escapade shows, he may not be as smart as he like to think he is. The truth is, you are right, the guys that pull this heists off with phishing emails are not all that bright or sophisticated. But as the old saying goes, "there is a sucker born every minute".
 

CyberB0b

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I misread this and thought it was the Packers. I have football on the brain.
 

SlammedZero

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A lot of dumb and naive people in the world
Unfortunately they prey heavily on senior citizens as well. Those that may not know better. I've heard several stories of older people being duped out of money. Makes me furious. These heartless people that do this, especially to senior citizens, need a good speed-beating.
 
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