Stealing Your Life is a wonderfully written book to show case examples and possible prevention techniques to protect yourself from identity theft. Identity theft is a crime that has been around for ever but is getting more common as personal information and a blatant disregard for ones personal information is increasing. Many of us still write checks, or give out personal information, or simply throw away a canceled check not thinking more of it.
Frank Abagnale, the author of this book comes from a criminal past. His knowledge gained in his prior occupation as criminal gives him the ability to understand the thoughts of a criminal trying to perpetrate a crime. A crooks dream come true is how he refers to the current state of identity protection. Identity theft is here to stay and as long as individuals, politicians, law enforcement, and businesses fail to do anything about it the number of people victimized by it will continue to grow.
Abagnale starts his book laying the ground work and showing case examples of identity theft. He looks at the high tech ways of identity theft such as phishing and pharming and even discusses the not so advanced methods such as dumpster-diving. Based on these things the book is written with emphasizing the fact that you need and must do some thing’s to protect your identity and your future.
Abagnale offers several tips to help protect a person’s identity such as mailing all your payments from the post office rather than your mailbox. Another thing recommended by the author is to opt out of the disclosures you have to sign for places such as credit card companies. This stops them from sending your information to places they rather than you do business with.
One of the most important things this author tries to stress is that you must at the least keep personal information as personal as possible. Also, he strongly suggests monitoring your credit report. Not just from one company but from all three. You can do this for free once a year but it is wise to check it at least quarterly or semi-annually.
This book will provide you with all information necessary to inform you of identity theft and the crisis of it. It is written in a way to provide easy apprehension and provides you with steps to help prevent identity theft to you and your loved ones. A must read book for all.