Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Credit Card Scammer Makes Millions Living a Double Life
Wed, 26 Feb 2025
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Chapter 1: What led Matthew Cox to a life of crime?
We're making $1.2 million a month. I have IDs to go with any card that I need. So I had a crib in Scottsdale. I had a crib in Houston and Miami. One of my best friends is a U.S. Marshal. Nobody knows that I'm a scammer. So I was charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft. My mindset is, bro, I'm coming back with a vengeance.
The girl that I was talking to at the time, she's like, hey, listen. you have to give the gab, you know, I know you got this college degree. Nobody's really hiring right now because of this recession thing is trying to blow over. This is in 2010. And she's like, Hey, look, Why don't you just come work at this collection agency? Right? So I'm like, all right, cool. Yeah, I'll try.
There's no shortage of collections.
I'll try it out. I'll see what's going on. So in my mind, I'm thinking bill collector whole time, right? That's what I'm saying.
Yeah.
I'm thinking bill collector. So the pay wasn't that much. I think it might have been $12 an hour at the time. Like I said, this is 2010. And I'm like, all right, cool. So boom, go to the collection agency. My first month. I made a bonus because what they did was they paid you 25% of whatever. Okay, so you had a goal. Let's say your goal is $7,000, right? But you collect $10,000.
So 25% of the $3,000 over is what your bonus would be. So my first bonus was $2,000. Plus the $12. Plus my $12 an hour, right? So I was like... It can't be this easy. So what we were doing, we were collecting on payday loans. Online payday loans are like Ace Cash, stuff like that. So I'm like, man, this is pretty sweet.
That's like $85,000 a year. $85,000 a year. That's on the low end. That's on the low end.
If you're just a trash collector, like... you know, you might, you, you know, trash collectors clear 60. Right. But I actually, so I actually got into character with this stuff. Right. So, um, I had a shake name, right. I had a shake name and I will also have a clothes name. So whenever I called the people would be like, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. Hello. Hey, this is Victor Roy he.
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Chapter 2: How did he start making money through scams?
Go to aura.com slash Matt to get your free trial and start protecting what's yours today. So what do they do? Call. And you answer as the other person? Oh, yeah.
Hey, how are you? This is Brent Horton. Hello? Yes. Okay. Yeah, man, they gave me a case number. And mind you, now, let's say that I wasn't able to get in contact with you. Right. And I spoke to maybe your mother because, you know, we had skip tracing, you know, we had LexisNexis and stuff like that. Accurate LexisNexis and all that. So I had to skip tracing.
So I'll call all your family members really before I call you too.
They know you're out. They know it's something's happening. It's out there. Somebody's called you.
I'm leaving voicemails on their phones. I'm also contacting your mother, father. I'm talking to the auntie that you haven't spoken to since the family reunion five years ago. Right. You know what I mean? Hey, Matthew, you need to call these people. Then it turns into, hey, the police looking for you.
Yeah, yeah.
You know what I'm saying? Because it goes from process server to the police, right? So they call back and I collect on it, you know? So what we did was we had green money and blue money. Green money was money that day, right? And blue money was post-dated money. So let's say that my account for you was $500, right? Me personally, I would always put like an extra 200 on it. Right.
And that's just to boost my, you know, that's just to boost my bonus. Right. You know what I mean? And guess what? I need that today. Right. No, I need it today.
Right.
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Chapter 3: What methods did he use in his credit card scams?
And you didn't adhere to that. So me and my client feels like you tried to defraud them. It feels like you took their money and ran. I'm not sure exactly what happened. Oh, I had this going on my account. I had to change over like so many stories, you know? Right. But the best time to really – the most money I was making around the time was, like, tax season. Man, they didn't care.
You know, they get $7,000, $8,000 back. They paying that little $500, $700. They don't care. I just don't want it to, you know, mess with me. And, of course, you know, I made them feel comfortable. Hey, listen, I'll have my HR send you out a – a letter showing that you've paid this and that, and we didn't have an HR to do that stuff, man. Uh, but it was very lucrative. So I did that.
Um, I did that for about four years, actually. OK. Yeah, I did that for about four years. It was really, really good. I put a lot of guys on like a lot of guys that I was friends with that I knew could actually, you know, talk. Right. You know. And yeah, man.
Did they did they teach you that hustle or did you kind of develop it? Like did they have you like, hey, this is our basic script. And, you know, let me see how I can twist this and make it.
No, I wrote my own scripts. Yeah, yeah, I wrote my own scripts. Like I said, I got into character. When I was at work, I was behind the phone. So you can be anybody you want to behind the phone. You know what I'm saying? You can be anybody you wanted to be. So when I wanted to be aggressive, I was Victor Roy. When I wanted to keep it cool, I was Brent Horton. Sounds like a mad duck situation.
Where'd you get that idea? You just kind of like, hey, I think this will work.
So in collections, you can't think of it as being a collector. You know what I mean? Well, I never did anyway. I didn't think about it as being a collector. I thought about it as getting the money. That's what it was. That's what it was about. I have a $10,000 goal. I need to be $25,000 up. And then my next month for blue money, I need to come into the next month at $15,000 or $16,000.
Already at gold. You know what I'm saying? And collect on that as well. And that's essentially how it went. When you're collecting like that, you never want to start the next month off I never did anyway. I didn't want to start under gold. I wanted to start over gold. Every month I needed my stuff well over $10,000, at least $15,000, $16,000. And that's pretty much what I did. So I did that.
It was good. It was real good. It was lucrative. And at the time... The guys that I was actually working for, they, um, they used to work with me, so they opened up their own. So we went from like 11, 12 people. Right. Taking $50 payments, like taking the low end just to like build up, you know, to, and I think we had like 150 people, you know, when it was all said and done. So this is 2014.
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Chapter 4: How did Matthew manage his double life?
You make one or two payments.
No, no, no. I'm burning this card in a month.
Oh, okay. Because you don't want them to get the bill in the mail. You could go paperless. Yeah.
Not at that time.
No.
No, not yet. Not yet. No, not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Well, maybe. Some car.
They're probably slowly switching over.
Yeah. This was before the chip. Oh, okay. Yeah, I didn't even have a chip yet. This is just straight slide. Right. So, yeah. So, I was like, all right, instead of me treating this as fraud, right, let me go ahead and start treating it as my own. Now, I'm still at the collection agency. And I'm like, you know what? I got enough money. I'm going to get my own collection agency.
Because the people that I was actually, like, taken from were people that were on my accounts. See what I'm saying? So it could kind of come back like, well, you know, if we went back and looked. So... I'm like, well, let me just go ahead and get my own collection agency. And then so because I could get my own skip tracing service with the collection agency. So that's what I did.
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Chapter 5: What strategies did he use to avoid getting caught?
Plus, you're creating the collections. At this point, you can go in and say, hey, here's some names. These guys are going to be needed. We're going to be calling these guys in two weeks.
That's a fact. That's a fact. I ought to buy the paper from them. But, yeah, that's what transpired. So I changed my image. I'm wearing my slacks, hard bottoms. I mean, this is every day, you know, and traveling as well because, you know, If I'm traveling first class, I'm traveling, if first class is taken, I'm right behind them. And I have my friends and family with me. This is my image.
When I walk up to a club or wherever, a bank, wherever, I need to be presentable. And that's how I started to carry myself. I started taking things a little step further. Now I start buying, I started buying cars in people's name. I started buying properties in people's name. Okay. Um,
Those are all titled. That's going to be at some point. Not even.
Are you buying the property in their name? I'm getting, yes.
You're buying property for you in their name or using their stuff. I'm using their credit to purchase different things, cars, cribs. But you're driving a vehicle in their name? A few times, yes. Okay. Yes? Yeah. That's going to be a problem. Okay. So, for instance, right? All right. It was a Corvette that I purchased. Okay. Let me tell you what happened, right? I'm in Charlotte, all right?
And I ride by this Chevrolet dealership, and I'm like, oh, my God. This is when the Corvette came out, the Stingray, the body style before the one now.
Okay.
I said, golly, it was convertible, white. It didn't have red interior. That was black seats, black wheels. And I was like, man, I want that car. So I go up there and I'm like, I'm about to fill out everything for the car. And the the sales associates are actually arguing with each other about who's going to get the sale. And honestly, I didn't like that. I'm like, dang, I just need some help.
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Chapter 6: What ultimately led to his arrest?
I was down in Gastonia until... January of, so yeah, I was in Gastonia for a year until January of 2018. That's when they shipped me. You know how you waiting on the bus, waiting on the bus, you know, after you get sentenced and you're like, all right, cool. Well, I know the bus going to be here. I hope I'm on this one because you ready to get out of jail at this point in time. I was ready.
I'm like, yo, because we never were able to go outside in jail. You know what I mean?
Everything inside. The guys that had been in jail. or been to prison, have explained, trust me, prison is so much better. You can walk the track. You can play. You can do this. You can play games. You can watch movies. You can get ice cream. Listen, ice cream was a big deal to me. Wait, hold on.
Wait, wait. Like the inmates making the ice cream with the creamer?
No, no, no. I mean going to commissary and getting an ice cream. yeah that's a fact yeah yeah yeah okay i remember saying it like it was it was a little it was like five minutes of freedom to eat that you know five or ten as you were eating it was like being free okay yeah i never ate the ice cream are you serious nah man no you didn't even have any time
You weren't even – you were still planning on things in the street when you were – Man, was I. People were still talking to you. Man, listen. People wrote me off. I was dead. That dude's gone. That dude's gone. He's dead. He's got 26 years. He's over. It's over. We'll never see him again.
He'll be dead. It's over for him. Yeah. Man, well, that's how I felt for a little bit. I guess until I went to prison. So, yeah. Yeah. I'm waiting on the bus. I get on the bus. Boom. Get out there. I'm playing with the phones pretty good. And then I'm like, oh, wow, I can get 18 months off. Yeah. Where's the unit? Downstairs. R-DAP.
oh let me sign up sign up get accepted because you know sometimes it's a waiting list yeah did you tell that was there drugs in your psi did you tell them that you had a drug problem or oh i'm alcoholic yeah and you know okay yeah so they accepted me uh so i'm down there and i'm i'm like okay cool i'm I'm coming home as soon because, because by this time I'm already a year in right in jail.
You got to get to nine months. Your girl practically going home. I'm going home.
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Chapter 7: What are the consequences of his actions?
And I got, listen, and how ironic, I got set back in RDAP in Kentucky as well. You know how they come in there unannounced, you know what I'm saying? Hey, yeah, we checking rooms today on this floor. Oh, my God.
So it's part of my addiction. I'm glad you guys found that. I feel glad you found it. I need to address it. I got problems. I have issues. I'm going to talk about it. I'll talk about it tomorrow.
We'll talk about it in class. We're going to set you back. What? Yeah, we're going to set you back. Don't worry about it. So that messed me up even further. So I ended up getting like four and a half months halfway house. Yeah, man. It is what it is.
I had a guy in prison. Yeah. Put like $400 or 300. He put 300. I want to say in prison. I think he put $300. I'd like, cause I was joking that when I got out, you know, they give you the card with your commissary money. I was like, like, I'm going to get out with like 87 cents on my card, you know, just like joking about it. And one of my buddies looked at me, he was like, what?
And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, cause I'm doing this. Like at the very, like, boom, like I only had like 15 bucks and I was going to go to store or do whatever it was. And it was going to end up being next to almost less than like a dollar.
Right.
And I was like, they charge you $1.50 just to get the money. I was like, so I don't even have a chance to get the money. So I was kind of laughing about it. And he was like, huh. And I mean, like a week or two before, probably a week before I got out, before I'm leaving, like a week, I go to... get on, you know, True Links or whatever it was.
Core Links.
Core Links, yeah. And there's 300 bucks on my account. And he had had somebody, and he'd deposited money on my account before.
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Chapter 8: What insights does he share about fraud and identity theft?
And this shit is like burning. I swear to God, I don't know how he was withstanding it, but it's like burning my eyes, burning my nose. Like, it's just like hard to be in the room. Right. So I'm like, here's what it is. So he like, Hey, look, it got to sit for a little bit. Cause we did a lot. I'm going to go grab something to eat. I'm going to be right back. I swear to God.
Look, hey, bro, you got the key to the safe. You seen me put this shit in here. Yeah. But what I realized was... He done switched. Okay, I'm going to tell you how I realized this in the end. So I leave. I call him, call him. He doesn't answer the phone, right? Oh, you leave? We both left.
Oh, okay. I got the key to the room and the key to the safe. Yeah, I was going to say, I was thinking he was going to say, hey, man, I'm going to go get something to eat real quick. Don't leave. I don't want anybody walking in and finding out. So you stay here. And then he leaves and gets in his car and just leaves because he's got your money tucked in his pocket.
No, he did. He had the money tucked for sure. But you off together. So where the flim flam was, was that I wasn't in the restroom with him at the same time. So he got me. Boom. I don't know this yet, though. So I'm like, yo, Ali, what's up, baby? Hey, we going to meet back at the room? That's what I'm calling him for, but he's not answering the phone.
So in the midst of him not answering the phone, now I will say this motherfucker was sophisticated. Because when I tell you he had some African girl call my fucking phone and it was the sheriff's department's number. Like the if you look it up on Google, I swear to God, it was the sheriff's department's number. It was a spoof app. Spoof me. You can do it right now.
Hey, this number was in Ali's phone. He got locked up. This is what she's telling me over the phone. But by that time, I had already went back. And this motherfucker gives me black construction paper in the safe. I say, God damn. I say, damn. I'm like, yo. So I'm telling her, I said, hey, listen. Just let Ali know. If I catch up with him, we going to have a problem. Straight like that.
We're going to have a problem.
And lo and behold. You didn't really think it was the sheriff's department when she called? Or did you call her back?
No, I knew it wasn't the sheriff's department. Her fucking accent was his.
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