Stealing Your Life: The Ultimate Identity Theft Prevention Plan by Frank W. Abagnale (PDF)

Description

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.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐A good book overall to be aware of how identity theft occurs and steps to prevent it from happening to you.I was familiar with most of the tactics identity thieves use, such as the scam emails telling you that millions of dollars will be transferred to your account (I’ve gotten tons of those emails). Other methods used by identity thieves were unfamiliar to me, such as taking your personal information during supposedly public surveys.I did find the author a bit repetitious, and felt this book could have been written in a fewer pages. The author does however get his point across, and not only will you be scared, but you will also be encouraged to start taking precautions against identity thieves. You will also wonder whether you are already the victim of an identity thief.I did find it surprising that most identity thieves are close friends or relatives! This bit came to me as a shocker, and the author gives many real life cases of how children stole the identity of their own parents, or vice-versa. You can really never trust anyone.I did find it annoying when the author promoted his shredder. I think this could have been discussed in an index, but not within the book itself. This somehow made me take the book less seriously, even though the author is a former counterfeiter and an FBI instructor on identity theft and counterfeits.This book is a must read for anyone wishing to identify identity theft and learn of ways to prevent it from happening in the first place (like shredding all your documents using the author’s patented shredder hihihihihihihi).The book could have been shorter and more captivating, and I did find myself skipping pages and skimming over others.

⭐Everyone should definitely read this book. Mr. Abagnale does a great job of making people aware of how vulnerable we all are to the dangers of identity theft.What I didn’t like was his tendency to sensationalize and exaggerate certain things; being able to access live satellite video feeds of your house on the internet, stuff like that. Yeah Google Earth and the street level view don’t do much for privacy, but the satellite picture of my subdivision is so dated that it still shows a big patch of dirt. Hardly live, hardly a threat to your kids.I say again, definitely buy this book and read it. You’ll be a much more prepared and aware person for doing so. I can definitely see why he places so much emphasis on prevention, with more serious crime being so prevalent these days, the government doesn’t have the resources to really go after identity thieves. Maybe we should all form an underground anti-identity theft vigilante group. Any takers?

⭐This is a book I suggested my husband read, after I had finished it myself. It caused many conversations between us in how to protect ourselves, and then we passed it on to friends. An eye opener.

⭐Must read for anyone who uses technology in their everyday life. Helps you stay protected.

⭐If you do not pay attention to authors self-glorification – it is good a reading.

⭐I listened to this book via my Audible.com subscription. I bought the print edition because there were so many reference I wanted to be able to look back on. It’s hard to do with the audio version so I bought the book. It makes you so much aware of the things that can bite you. The precautions are worth the price of the book. I don’t overlook some of the things he suggested any more.

⭐Frank Abagnale gives us a great deal of insight into how our identies can be stolen even if we have never opened a charge account in our lives. My sister frequently tells me her identity will never be stolen because she never uses a charge card over the Internet. Mr. Abagnale blows that theory out of the water. We’re living in a new world and need to take new precautions as clearly explained in this book.

⭐This book is written by one of our nation’s top security experts, one who truly serves the American people. If you have questions about identity theft or protecting yourself, this book is a great start.

⭐I thought this would be full of practical advice and autobiographical cases but it has very little of either. I could have googled this.

⭐This book will open your eyes to the scary world of identity theft. Thank you Frank for your well written and thoroughly researched book. You are doing your bit to alert us to what will happen if we’re not more careful with out personal information. The book caused me to change my careless ways.

⭐Educational.

⭐As an id fraud expert and being involved in the security industry this was an interesting read. Franks tips are still relevant today – wonder what Michael Sabo would have to say about this book? 😉

⭐Good for US readers but not so much for readers in other countries. Published in 2007, presently (2020) out of date.

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