Stealing Your Life

Description

The charismatic forger immortalized in the film 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. 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. So I could take your name and use my address, and get your birth certificate. From there I'm off to the races. Americans write 39 billion checks a year, and half of these folks 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. When Frank Abagnale trains law enforcement...