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Title: The Art of the Steal : How to Protect Yourself and Your Business from Fraud, America's #1 Crime by Frank W. Abagnale ISBN: 0-7679-0684-5 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 12 November, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (18 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Informative follow-up to "Catch Me If You Can"
Comment: "Art of the Steal" is an informative book from master confidence man Frank Abagnale. It begins as a sequel to Abagnale's "Catch Me If You Can" (filling in the years between the end of the first book and Abagnale's reinvention as a fraud-prevention guru), and quickly becomes a sort of reference book and strategy guide, enumerating numerous prevalent financial scams, and describing sensible techniques for preventing fraud. Abagnale speaks at length about check, credit-card and ATM fraud, counterfeit designer apparel and consumer goods, Internet-based fraud, and security features of modern U.S. currency. The book is well-organized, with plenty of anecdotes throughout (the most entertaining is a phone scam in which somebody uses a 1-900 area code to achieve dubious results). Overall, "Art of the Steal" is not quite as much fun as "Catch Me If You Can", but it's an admirable effort nonetheless. This is a more business-minded book, where you'll find lots of good information, if it's the sort of information you're looking for.

Rating: 4
Summary: From the horses mouth
Comment: The Art of the Steal by Frank W. Abagnale is a must have for anyone with money. Abagnale, recently of "Catch Me If You Can" movie fame, was one of the youngest and most successful con-men of our time. After serving time and leaving the dark side for good, Abagnale reformed into the anti-criminal. This book uncovers the world's most common scams and describes ways to prevent them. The key word here is prevention.

Among the frauds that Abagnale describes are: credit card fraud, check fraud, embezzlement, counterfeit fraud, ATM fraud, brand-name fraud, and for all of you reading this, Internet fraud. He also discusses Indentity theft as the most important fraudulent trend of the 21st century.

I particulary enjoyed the dry and often humorous tone of this book. It is so typical of Abagnale. If I had one complaint about the book it would be that there were not enough preventive measures discussed. I wanted more.

Did this book change the way I live my life? Absolutely. I have changed many of my practices to help prevent fraud in my daily dealings. A book that can motivate someone to do that, has to have value. When it comes down to preventing fraud, knowledge is key. I therefore recommend this book to all. May we become smarter, more aware, and minimize the impact of fraud in our lives.

Rating: 4
Summary: comprehensive and pretty up-to-date
Comment: This is a very easy-to-read and useful compendium of information about common forms of fraud
and how to protect yourself from them. I've read numerous books of this type, and this is
the one I would recommend most highly today for being up-to-date and comprehensive. Abagnale
often gives unsourced anecdotes, but there are several that I recognize from newspaper or
other accounts I've read. My only real complaints with the book were that Abagnale says he uses
his children's birthdays for his PIN numbers (p. 149) which is bad advice given the ease
of obtaining birth certificates, his account of being the victim of credit card theft
over the Internet (pp. 151-153) doesn't seem entirely accurate unless he really did submit
his credit card number, and his statement about viruses arising from mere copying of legitimate
software (p. 176) is incorrect. He also missed an opportunity to warn about fake escrow
sites (p. 162). Apart from this, however, I think the book contains very valuable warnings
and advice.

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