That’s the scenario that played out this past October for Charlotte Cowles, a financial advice columnist for The Cut, a lifestyle and women’s interest publication underneath the umbrella of New York Magazine.
Since 2016, Cowles has written a regular column for the site called “My Two Cents,” in which she responded to reader questions about personal finance, saving money, creating budgets and, among other topics, avoiding scams.
But last year on Halloween, Cowles found herself on the other end of the exchange, her seeming expertise not preventing her from falling victim to a complex scheme that resulted in her giving a scammer much of her life’s savings.
