Stealing Your Life: The Ultimate Identity Theft Prevention Plan

by Frank W. Abagnale

Book Overview

The charismatic forger immortalized in Catch Me If You Can exposes the astonishing tactics of today's identity theft criminals and offers powerful strategies to thwart them based on his second career as an acclaimed fraud-fighting consultant.

When Frank Abagnale trains law enforcement officers around the country about identity theft, he asks officers for their names and addresses and nothing more. In a matter of hours he can obtain everything he would need to steal their lives: Social Security numbers, dates of birth, current salaries, checking account numbers, the names of everyone in their families, and more. This illustrates how easy it is for anyone from anywhere in the world to assume our identities and in a matter of hours devastate our lives in ways that can take years to recover from. Considering that a fresh victim is hit every four seconds, Stealing Your Life is the reference everyone needs by an unsurpassed authority on the latest identity theft schemes.

Consider these sobering facts:
- Six out of ten American companies and government agencies have already been hacked.
- An estimated 80 percent of birth certificate requests are fulfilled through the mail for people using only a name and a return address.
- Americans write 39 billion checks a year, and half of them never reconcile their bank statements.
- A Social Security number costs $49 on the black market. A driver's license goes for $90. A birth certificate will set you back $79.

Abagnale offers dozens of concrete steps to transform anyone from an easy mark into a hard case that criminals are likely to bypass:

- Don't allow your kids to use the computer on which you do online banking and store financial records (children are apt to download games and attachments that host damaging viruses or attract spyware).
- Beware of offers that appeal to greed or fear in exchange for personal data.
- Monitor your credit report regularly and know if anyone's been "knocking on your door."
- Read privacy statements carefully and choose to opt out of sharing information whenever possible.

Brimming with anecdotes of creative criminality that are as entertaining as they are enlightening, Stealing Your Life is the practical way to shield yourself from one of today's most nefarious and common crimes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767925874
• ISBN13: 9780767925877
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Learn to think like a thief, to stop a thief in your life....

According to law enforcement statistics every four seconds someone becomes a victim of predatory identity theft. However, just like any predator, identity thieves are looking for the easiest targets. The book Stealing Your Life by reformed check-kiter and conman Frank Abagnale can help anyone make it tougher to steal their identity. You may recognize Abagnale's name as the main character of the 2002 major motion picture Catch Me If You Can where actor Leonardo Dicaprio chronicled the late teen years of Abagnale who scammed millions in bad checks as he posed as an attorney, airline pilot and physician - before he was caught and prosecuted. Abagnale has since become a highly-sought after consultant by hundreds of police agencies across the country. Soundview thinks everyone with a social security number should read this book because the author outlines dozens of proven tactics to help protect yourselves against the real threat of identity theft. It truly can be said that the best way to catch a thief is to think like one, which is what Stealing Your Life helps the average person do in a practical (and completely legal) manner.

Terrifying

There is excellent knowledge in here. Identity theft feels less likely after we made most of the changes suggested. Highly recommended.

Mr. Abagnale tells it like he sees it! Informative & Important!

The truth is -one can't appreciate the vast amount of time it takes nor the physical and mental angst that comes with finding out you've been violated, and essentially stolen...until it lands in your own life! I applaud Mr. Abagnale for speaking out and using his wealth of knowledge and life experiences to shed light on this growing and alarming crime. Typical and common myths that leave many people vulnerable include: "I don't have to worry about identity theft because I live in a small town like Mayberry, RFD!" or "I only use one credit card so I don't have to worry about it." or "I only use cash or my debit card." Or even... "I don't have to be concerned about my credit -I have excellent credit!" The reality is -data breaches will continue to happen as "hacking" gets more sophisticated, and criminals will continue to be at least one step ahead of us at all times. Once upon a time, our personal information was just that -ours and personal! Not anymore! Give Me Back My Credit!

Excellent overview of the scourge of identity theft

It's a fallacy that our elected officials take forever to get things done. Two examples where Washington acted with speed are with the National Do Not Call Registry and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The National Do Not Call Registry was slated to take effect on October 1, 2003, but various marketing associations challenged its legitimacy and even if the FTC had the jurisdiction to enforce it. Notwithstanding, President Bush speedily signed the bill authorizing the no-call list to go into effect in September 2003 and the United State Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the registry in February 2004. On June 25, 2002, WorldCom revealed it had overstated its earnings by more than $7 billion by improperly accounting for its operating costs. Senator Paul Sarbanes then introduced Senate Bill 2673 that same day where it passed 97-0 less than three weeks later. The House and Senate formed a Conference Committee to reconcile the differences between Sarbanes's bill and Representative Michael Oxley's bill (HR 3763) and on July 24, 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was passed. The bottom line is that when politicians really want votes and PR, they can act swiftly. The frustration is exacerbated when politicians choose to do nothing when it comes to identity theft. In Stealing Your Life: The Ultimate Identity Theft Prevention Plan, Frank Abagnale details the frustration that consumers face (and will face in the years to come) when their identities are stolen, the ease at which the criminals carry out such crimes, and the months and often years of effort required to regain ones identity. Abagnale's tenure on the criminal side long ago gives him the advantage that he knows firsthand how criminals think and such an outlook is pervasive throughout the book. Looking at the current state of identity protection, he states that he is personally horrified at how easy identity theft is. In fact, he calls it "a crook's dream come true". The book details incident after incident where criminals and criminal gangs obtained credit in someone else's name with ease. What makes this worse is that the book shows how we haven't even scratched the surface of the identity theft problem. Everyone, including the FTC agrees that current identity theft figures are quite low, due to the fact that so many cases go unreported or undetected. The book notes that lenders often miscategorize a good deal of identity theft because it looks like delinquent bills, as opposed to a crime. Only later does the victim realize what has been going on and complains, at which time it becomes apparent that fraud was involved. But by that time, the money has been written off as a credit loss and then appears as negative information on the victim's credit report. Like many other books on the subject of identity theft, Stealing Your Life: The Ultimate Identity Theft Prevention Plan covers the main issues, and makes numerous suggestions on how to control your identity. What i

Outstanding work by the expert

Frank Abagnale has hit the nail on the head in his new book, "Stealing Your Life." It covers everything one needs to know to protect themselves from one of the most insidious crimes today, identity theft. It costs thousands of people time, money and the one thing many hold dear, privacy. Abagnale has done the world a service by putting into everyday language things people should do to protect themselves from becoming a victim. I have already read the book and intend to make it a gift to my three adult children so they too can know what they have to do to prevent this crime. Thanks to Mr. Abagnale for his excellent contribution to everyone who reads the book.