Andy Cohen Reveals He Became a Victim of Bank Fraud, Scammers Robbed Him of a 'Lot of Money’

Bank frauds are seriously scary, and for Andy Cohen, it led to losing 'a lot of money.' In a recent Daddy Diaries podcast episode, co-hosted by John Hill, Cohen described how he fell victim to bank fraud without realizing it. The Watch What Happens Live! host revealed that he was duped into falling for the scam because he believed the call might have something to do with a recently lost card, per PEOPLE.

"I had gotten an email on Sunday because I lost a card, and I put in for it, and I got an email like, 'There might be fraud on your account. And I was like, 'Oh, this is attached to the card I lost," Cohen said on the podcast.

Cohen signed in to his bank account thinking he was communicating with his bank, but he quickly discovered something wasn't right. “Then it asked for my Apple ID and password,” he said. “And I was like… OK, this never happens."

Cohen "bailed out" at that point, but he also disclosed that it was "too late" by then. “I had already logged into my bank app, and I think somehow, by logging in through whatever this site was giving them access to my bank app,” he shared. The Watch What Happens Live presenter went on to explain that the scammers had compromised Cohen's caller ID system, causing their call to display on his phone as his bank's identity. Cohen was unaware that the calls were the same ones from the earlier hacking because at the time he thought they were a fraud alert team.

“They were naming credits that I had made — the charges — because they clearly had access to my account," he recalled, before explaining that "what I should have said is, ‘Can I call you back?’ Or what I should have maybe said is, ‘I’m gonna go to my bank and handle this.’” Even after realizing his error, Cohen couldn't stop the hackers from accessing his money. After staying “on the line with this woman for an hour and 10 minutes,” the late-night host revealed on the podcast that he later noticed “these people wired out of two accounts that I have a lot of money.”

He added that the bank was unable to contact him regarding the money transfers from his account since he had been duped into setting up call-forwarding to the con artists. The calls were diverted to the con artists instead, who subsequently "confirmed the wires," he added, per Insider.

Then he said that he had called his parents to inform them of what had transpired and to give them advice on how to avoid making the same mistakes he had. Cohen is still attempting to retrieve his funds. "So, I think part of my advice for people is: If you feel something is happening, just go to your bank branch," Cohen said. "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."