It could happen when you make a routine withdrawal from an ATM, respond to an e-mail asking for information about an online account, or leave a new box of checks unattended in your mailbox. Identity theft is one of the easiest crimes to commit in America—and one of the hardest to prosecute. As thieves become increasingly clever, Americans have more reasons than ever to fear this elusive, ubiquitous crime. Now there’s a book to help you beat it.

In two easy-to-understand sections, Terri Cullen, The Wall Street Journal’s expert on identity theft, first walks you through the most common types of identity theft and how to arm yourself against them, and then leads victims step-by-step through the process of reclaiming a stolen identity. The average victim loses more than $6,000 and spends approximately 600 hours negotiating the complex bureaucracies and paperwork—this book will help save time and effort by laying out the process. And by following the advice in the first half, you may never need the second!

You’ll learn:
• how to avoid the most common scams, from “phishing” to “dumpster diving”
• why children under eighteen are the fastest-growing target, and how you can protect your family
• why your credit report is the single most important document for protecting your identity
• how to use the sample letters, forms, and other useful tools inside for recovering from identity theft

In today’s marketplace, your two most valuable assets are your credit and your identity. No one should be without this vital guide to protecting them.

Author: Terri Cullen
Paperback:  224 pages
Company: Three Rivers Press  (2007-07-10) (2007-07-10)
ISBN: 0307338533
List Price: $13.95
Amazon Price: $8.10
Used Price: $8.10

More: continued here

Bookmark to:

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 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.

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.

Author: Frank W. Abagnale
Hardcover:  256 pages
Company: Broadway  (2007-04-24) (2007-04-24)
ISBN: 0767925866
List Price: $24.95
Amazon Price: $9.95
Used Price: $7.50

More: continued here

Bookmark to: