Ed 'Doc' Holliday is a dentist and author of Crypto Conned: My $200,000 Nightmare.
Talking about this on American Family Radio (AFR)'s "Today's Issues" program, Holliday said that he was aware of scams and thought he'd done everything necessary to keep himself safe. That is until he answered a phone call from people pretending to be someone else alerting him about a problem.
At first, he didn't believe they were legit, but they said a lot of things that led Holliday to eventually think they were sincere.
"When it happens, it's devastating," said Holliday. "I just felt about as bad as I've ever felt in my life. Two-hundred-thousand? How much of that could I have given to AFA and other organizations?"
Holliday calls the book a survival guide.
In it he shares the 10 key steps he learned through his experience -- tools he says anyone can use to
protect their financial future in a day when so much business is conducted online.
Crypto Conned details common tricks scammers use including urgency and fear, authority and credibility, emotional manipulation, illusion of control and fake personalization.
No account is too small for scammers, he warns.
"If you have an online banking account, you have any assets, whatever, they're coming after it," said Holliday. "Scammers want it."
