The Sweetest Con of All : Part 3

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

(Page 3 of 3)

The crime has become so mainstream that comedians have begun joking about it, always a tip - off that it's time to worry. Andy Borowitz, a humor columnist, quipped recently that a thief who rounded up a half - million identities returned all but four of them because the other 499,996 were "totally worthless." Identity thieves, he said, were getting awfully sick of this, feeling it only fair that financial institutions clearly flag deadbeat identities so that crooks don't have to waste their valuable time.

I'll Tell You Twenty - two Things Overnight

In my entire career I have never encountered a crime as easy to pull off as identity theft. The main reason is that so much personal information is widely and publicly available, there for anyone to take. Once upon a time criminals used to have to really work to make an illegal living. Back when I was passing bad checks, if you wanted to lift information on someone's identity, you had to penetrate so much bureaucracy that it almost wasn't worth the headache. You had to go down to the county records department and try to cadge information, or try to get at boating records and mortgage information by cajoling low - level civil service workers. It could be done, but it took know - how and talent, plus you had to do it in person, producing witnesses. Now rank amateurs can do it, with technology's helping hand. An identity thief can acquire everything needed to steal your life by going online for less than thirty minutes. If he's in a big rush and has a high - speed Internet hookup, fifteen might suffice. Getting someone's supposedly secure information is no harder than downloading a Paris Hilton video.

I regularly teach agents at the FBI Academy, and one little demonstration I do is to ask one of my students for his address. Nothing more, not even his name. By the following morning I'm able to hand over to him twenty - two pieces of so - called "private" information about him, including his Social Security number, birth date, salary, current bank and account numbers, mother's maiden name, children's names, spouse's name and Social Security number, and neighbors. I can even reveal who lives with him in his house but isn't related to him. And I don't even have to do something as dramatic as hack into a bank database. All this information is readily available from publicly accessible sources on the Internet, and you or Joe Criminal can get it as easily as I did. Imagine how much I could have found out about the guy if I had decided to break the law!

Just this past year a friend of mine had his birthday in June, and I wanted to send him a card, but I couldn't remember the exact date. So I logged on to the Web and went to the Texas Public Health Records, because I knew he had been born in Texas, and typed in his name. Up came the city and county he was born in, as well as his mother's maiden name, his date of birth, and on and on, all the information right there online for free.

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, 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.

In today's hotly competitive financial marketplace, speed is of the essence. Thieves love fast credit approval, because haste is the enemy of accuracy. Credit card issuers, for their part, can be very sloppy in doling out cards, failing to match Social Security numbers and dates of birth and otherwise failing to take basic precautions in their eagerness to get cards in circulation. Issuers say their screening is tighter than ever, but dead people, one - year - old babies, and dogs of varying ages still find themselves offered preapproved cards. (I imagine a few turtles and some parakeets have gotten them as well.) A Livermore, California, man signed up for an e - mail account in his dog's name, expanding it to Clifford J. Dog. Sure enough, in short order Clifford got a preapproved credit card application. As a lark, the owner filled it out. Pugsy Malone was listed as the mother's name. For the Social Security number, the owner chose 000-00-0000. Then he wrote that this was for a dog, please don't send a card. Naturally, the card came.

In fact, it's now child's play to assume someone's identity. Suppose you go to the grocery store and write a check for $52. The check bears your full name and address and maybe your phone number to boot. It also has the full name and address of the bank where the check is drawn and your account number. Maybe the clerk asks to see your driver's license. The clerk might jot down the license number (in nine states, that could still be your Social Security number) and even your date of birth.

Hundreds of people, from the grocery store clerk to check - clearing house employees, will see this check. Then it goes back to the payee bank. If you don't get your checks in your statement, they go to a company that shreds them - and even there they can be copied before being shredded. And that's just one way thieves can get virtually all the vital information they need.

To prove a point a few years ago, the California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights went on the Internet and bought the Social Security numbers and home addresses of the CIA director, the attorney general, and the FTC chairman. It cost them $26. Sounds like a steal to me.

Copyright © 2007 by Frank W. Abagnale

About the Author

Frank W. Abagnale is the author of the bestselling memoir Catch Me If You Can and The Art of the Steal. He works closely with the FBI and corporations around the world as an expert on counterfeiting and document security. He lives in the Midwest.