Book 3
Bulletproof Online
The Anti-Scam Playbook
By Dan Wheeler
What you'll get from this book: Plain-English defenses against the scams that are draining Americans today, a checklist of the protections to turn on, practice scenarios, and an exact plan for what to do if money or information has already left.
In this chapter
- The Anti-Scam Playbook
Scams are quieter, faster, and more personal than they were a few years ago. Artificial intelligence writes the message. A copied voice creates the panic. Cryptocurrency moves the money before the call is over. This manual is the response: confirm requests on a channel you already trust, lock the accounts that can reset everything else, and refuse pressure to pay immediately. Books 1 and 2 help you clear debt and build wealth. This book protects both: one scam can undo a year of progress in an afternoon.
About this book
Bulletproof Online is written so that a person who does not work in security can recognize a scam, lock the accounts that matter, and know where to report a loss.
It is free, like everything in . There are no advertisements, no affiliate links, and nothing to buy. The site will never ask you for money, a password, a , or a copy of an identity document.
Your chapter marks, checklist, and practice scores are saved only in this browser. Nothing is sent to a server. You can export or clear them from at any time.
This book is educational. It is not legal advice, financial advice, or incident response. If money has already moved, use the red Get help now button at the top of every page and the official sites it links to.
The numbers
- $20.9 billion lost to internet crime in the U.S. in 2025. Reported losses to the FBI, up 26% from 2024.¹
- 1.0 million complaints in a single year. 1,008,597 complaints to the FBI’s (IC3).¹
- $7.2 billion lost to cryptocurrency investment fraud. Reported losses in 2025.¹
- 1,400%+ rise in crypto impersonation scams. Impersonation scams traced on the , 2025 compared with 2024.²
Where the money went
Reported losses to the FBI’s (IC3) in 2025, in billions of dollars.¹
| Category | Losses | Share of all losses |
|---|---|---|
| Investment fraud | $8.65 billion | 41% |
| Business email compromise | $3.05 billion | 15% |
| Tech-support scams | $2.13 billion | 10% |
| Romance and confidence scams | $0.93 billion | 4% |
| Government impersonation | $0.80 billion | 4% |
| Phishing and spoofing (direct losses) | $0.22 billion | about 1% (but the most complaints of any category) |
The order to turn on sign-in protection
means a second proof, on top of your password, each time you sign in. From strongest to weakest:
- . Tied to the real website, so a look-alike page cannot use them. Turn them on wherever a service offers them.
- . A small physical key, such as a YubiKey, for your email and your . Buy two and register both. Keep one stored safely at home.
- Authenticator app. Authy, Google Authenticator, or the code generator built into your password manager. Fine for everything else.
- Text-message codes (). Better than a password alone, but they can be stolen with a . Use them only as a last resort, and never for cryptocurrency or email.
- 1 Passkeys
- 2 Hardware security key
- 3 Authenticator app
- 4 Text-message codes (SMS)
Sources
¹ FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 Internet Crime Report (2026), complaint and loss tables. https://www.ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2025_IC3Report.pdf
² Chainalysis, "2026 Crypto Crime Report: Scams" (January 13, 2026). https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/crypto-scams-2026/