Catch Me if you Can

Written by Frank W. AbagnaleWith Stan Redding

born April 27, 1948

Grew up in New York City

Now lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Owns a fraud prevention firm

Has written The Art of the Steal, Real U Guide To Identity Theft, Stealing Your Life.

ProtagonistFrank Abagnale

“you’re rooting for a man who would no sooner look at you than see your face as a giant lollipop with the word ‘sucker’ printed on it. And why not? After all, these days, a criminal this good is hard to find.”Entertainment weekly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-QSz4R7mR0

AntagonistO’reilly is the FBI agent that is constantly trying

to catch frank.

Favorite CharacterFrank W Abagnale Jr

He pretended to be eight different people

Wrote cashed over $2.5 million in bad checks

Visited over twenty five countries

All before he was twenty one.

Least favorite characterPaulette Abagnale

Forced frank to go to catholic boarding school

Divorced Frank abagnal sr because they were becoming poor.

expositionHe was the 3rd of four children. His parents

names were Frank, and Paulette

He lived in Bronxville, New York with both parents until he was twelve.

Once his parents divorced he was the only kid who lived with his father.

Was sent to catholic boarding school after not paying the bill on his credit card

Lived with his dad until he was sixteen

Rising actionHe runs away from home at age sixteen

Impersonates a co-pilot for Pan American airways

Writes and cashes over $2.5 million in bad checks

Visited over 26 countries

Pretended to be eight different people

Did all this before he was 21

climaxHe is finally caught by French Police and

spends eight months in Perpignan Prison.

Then he was sent to Malmo Sweden where he spent six months.

Then he was expedited by a Swedish judge to the U.S.

Once in the U.S. he escaped twice and was finally caught in Montreal and sentenced to twelve years in federal prison in Virginia.

Falling actionServed Four years of the 72 he was sentenced

to.

He was then granted parole

He then worked as a waiter, a pizza chef, grocery stocker, and a movie projectionist.

resolutionAfter being fired from every job he could get he

got an idea.

He knew that he knew more about check forgery than probably anyone else.

He decided to put those skills to good use.

He now is a consultant to the FBI, and owns a secure documents and fraud prevention firm called Abagnale and associates.

SettingTime- Period 1960’s

Place- Begins in New York city and then travels to nearly anywhere you could think of.

Nobody had really committed check fraud or identity theft on the scale he did until then.

ThemesFamily Problems, Broken Home, Divorce

Greed, always wanting something better

The thrill or challenge of doing something illegal or wrong.

Rating of the bookOn a scale of 1 to 10 I would give it an 8

Very entertaining

Well written

Not really a very clear message, just a lot of cool stories.

Main social issueFraud-deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach

of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage. (dictionary.com)

There are many types of fraud including: Identity theft, telemarketing fraud, and pyramid schemes.

Identity theft“ I have actually never witnessed a crime in my

entire career on both sides of the law that is so simplistic and so easy to do.” Frank W. Abagnal Jr

The crime of the century is identity theft. We have given away so much information that anyone anywhere can become anybody at anytime. (Abagnale)

Identity theft“In my thirty-one years teaching at the FBI

academy I have only seen crime get faster, easier, harder to detect, and committed from thousand of miles away where we don’t even have jurisdiction to go arrest the people who commit those crimes.” Frank W Abagnale Jr

The federal trade commission estimates that 9 million people per year are affected by identity theft just in the United states.

The federal trade commission estimates that 9 million people per year are affected by identity theft just in the United states.

Identity theft is one of if not the most prevalent of all the types of fraud.

In the same survey the found the estimated total dollars stolen and it was more than $53

While there are many legitimate companies that use the telephone for marketing, consumers and business lose millions of dollars to telemarketing fraud each year. It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between reputable telemarketers and criminals who use the phone to rob people.(www.fraud.org)

Telemarketing fraud Just like in frank abagnales time check fraud is

a big problem.

It is the number one complaint for the last two years according to the national fraud information center.

The average victim lost over $3800.oo

Consumers paid with phony checks for work or items sold,

instructed to wire money back.

Telemarketing fraudThe most expensive average loss reported to

the national fraud information center is $8,417.61

This is the average amount stolen when a lottery club Requests for payment to claim lottery winnings or get help to win, often foreign lotteries (www.fraud.org)

In June, hackers infiltrated the computers at Card Systems and stole as many as 40 million credit card numbers, the largest reported breach of personal data. ---Los Angeles Times, 2005

There are many ways to steal your information and almost no ways get it back once your identity has been stolen

skimming

It is the illegal copying of information from the magnetic strip of a credit or ATM card. The scammers try to steal your details so they can access your accounts. Once scammers have skimmed your card, they can create a fake or ‘cloned' card with your details on it. The scammer is then able to run up charges on your account. (ksl.com)

Skimming in Utah

"Somebody might sit in a parking lot with a laptop for a while, or a BlackBerry, something that would collect via Bluetooth -- would download occasionally as people would come though and buy gasoline, collect their information."

Police say between the device at the 7-Eleven on 1300 East and the device found at the 7-Eleven on 9400 South, consumers lost more than $11,000 from criminals skimming their credit and debit cards. (Yi,Sandra KSL.com 2010)

Good ways to avoid getting skimmed

shop assistant takes your card out of your sight in order to process your transaction.

You are asked to swipe your card through more than one machine.

You see a shop assistant swipe the card through a different machine to the one you used.

You notice something suspicious about the card slot on an ATM (e.g. an attached device).

You notice unusual or unauthorized transactions on your account or credit card statement.-Courtesy Australian Competition and Consumer Protection

prevention“Silence is frauds best friend. Word of mouth is

frauds worst enemy.” Fraudaid.com

An interesting point about fraud is that it is a crime in which you decide on whether to participate. Hanging up the phone or not responding to shady mailings or emails makes it difficult for the scammer to commit fraud. (http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/fraudschemes.htm)

Avoiding fraudAs with most things if it looks to good to be

true it most likely is. This is one of the key points the FBI makes in avoiding fraud.

According to the FBI we give out so much information about ourselves that it is almost impossible to prevent identity theft.

Some tips the FBI gives to avoiding fraud:

Never give your credit card number over the telephone unless you make the call.

Report unauthorized financial transactions to your bank, credit card company, and the police as soon as you detect them.

Don't pay for a "free prize." If a caller tells you the payment is for taxes, he or she is violating federal law.

Always report fraud If nobody reports that they were scammed the

proper authorities will never know it happened and never look for that person.

It is next to impossible to track someone who committed cyber fraud, so always report it.

Learn about current schemes that at are out there then you will be better prepared to recognize and avoid them.