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1. Best Resource on Cybercrime
   I’ve now read three books on the topic of cybercrime. This text by Frank Abagnale is the best. Both comprehensive and accessible, the book was interesting and highly informative. I took many notes, as I learned practical tips to protect both myself and my family from fraudsters. A “must read” essential guide.

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2. Important information for all
   This book was reasonably well written, and the author has the required expertise for such advice. It is timely advice and certainly needed to help the reader avoid the many current and likely new scams constantly being cooked up by criminal elements Worldwide.I had been targeted several years ago, when the technology-based scams were just beginning, but I fortunately had enough knowledge and skepticism to avoid being taken. The first was an email supposedly from someone in Nigeria or a similar place, promising that I would be the recipient of a huge sum of money if I responded to the message. It was either from a supposed bank officer saying I was someone’s heir, some widow supposedly dying and wanting someone trustworthy to handle her estate for some purpose, or someone who admitting they needed help in stealing from the bank where they worked or to get their family’s funds out of the country ahead of a rival regime. I have had so many such emails over the years, I don’t remember specifically which was the first one. And, of course, there are the ones from those who keep invoking their supposed “Christianity” disarm the gullible and to try to make me think they are honest. And I even got one of the early attempts by someone with a definite Indian accent claiming to work for “Microsoft.” Their pitch was that they had gotten a signal from my computer showing that it had been infected by some dangerous virus and that the caller could eliminate the problem for me. All I had to do was let them have remote access to my computer and pay some amount to them. I listened for a while, out of curiosity, but I knew enough to realize that “Microsoft” would not have any way to monitor the health of my computer and would not call me. The obvious foreign accent was another clue! Of course, I never let them access my computer, and just ended the call. A couple of years later, I began reading in various news articles about the exact scam I had avoided. Apparently is often had worked, as so many are technologically naive, and one of my neighbors admitted to having fallen for it.More recently, the majority of scams seem to be based on phone calls, either promising something such as reduced credit card interest, free cruises, lottery prizes, or the like, or fake threats or request for money, “confirmation” of confidential information, claiming to be from the IRS, your bank, or credit card company, your internet provider, or Medicare, etc. Just don’t answer your phone unless you recognize the caller–let all other calls go to voicemail. And understand that phone numbers can be “spoofed” to look as though they came from a legitimate source or a trusted area code.It is surprising how many people must fall for these scams and others. It must be the product of ignorance, greed (in some cases, such as those who fall for fake lottery winning payout promises or stock “pump and dump” schemes), and inability to understand how many crooks there are looking for any possible opportunity to steal from others. Those factors are enhanced, in many cases, by either low intelligence, some degree of dementia, a high degree of naivety, too much trust (compounded when the crooks are “friends” or family or members of the same religious institution), or just general lack of caution helps to decrease resistance to scams.My advice–be ever skeptical and buy the book.

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3. GREAT INFO FROM A MASTER SCAMMER
   I attended a conference some years ago where Frank Abagnale was the guest speaker. This was long before he branched out as an expert on all types of scams. I was impressed with the old crook. “Scam Me If You Can,” is his new book aimed at modern day scammers (whom I consider low-lives and despicable human beings). Abagnale gives the low down on avoiding these people. The best advice he gives is to not fall for the blarney and to quickly end all conversation.In Scam Me he touches on most of the modern day scams. When looking at his reporting, one has to wonder how anyone could be dumb enough to fall for any of it. But they do, and I have even been the victim a couple of times. Dumb me. But I have gotten positively rude in my old age and the scam calls seem to have slowed down. No one wants to talk to an old grouch.Abagnale’s book is simplistic in its message. It’s not complicated to see what the scammers try to do. Basically they prey on our greed. Something for nothing is alluring even though we all know there is no such thing. But the siren song never goes away, nor does it get fainter in our ears. Reading his warnings is a good reminder that we must turn away from self-satisfying behavior. His admonitions are carefully arranged and thoroughly cataloged. Although his words are somewhat repetitious, it is, nonetheless, a necessary method of pounding the message into our thick skulls to try to put an end to the nonsense.If you are fed up with these incursions into your life, as I am, pay attention, get smart, and put the scammers in their place, somewhere far away from you and your wallet. Getting them away from your computer or phone is no easy task, but constant checking for illegal usage by unknown privateers is absolutely necessary to protect yourself. Reading Abagnale’s book is a good way to become more aware of the dangers out there and how to handle them.Schuyler T WallaceAuthor of TIN LIZARD TALES

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4. Erudite & up-to-date fraud prevention handbook
   I’ve read a number of Abagnale’s books while researching my own true crime caper book. Frank’s insights play a pivotal role and I quote him often as you can see in the pictures. This is a good up-to-date summary of the state of the art on fraud prevention – for individuals, and especially retired folks who are especially at risk.It’s part narrative and part handbook, making it easy to skim and go back to certain sections. It is NOT a memoir like his classic “Catch Me If You Can.” There is not as much specifically about corporate accounting fraud, corporate espionage, intellectual property theft, or pervasive crowdfunding scams. For those, I recommend the more scholarly works of Mark Button and Joseph T. Wells. For crowdfund scams, I recommend John Lewis’ “Scams, Flops, and Failures: Crowdfunding They Warned You About.” For sophisticated cybersecurity, see McDonough’s “Cyber Safe.” For the larger issues around data privacy see Bruce Schneier’s “Data & Goliath” and for cybercrime Marc Goodman’s “Future Crime.”All in all this is a valuable book and I may assign it in a fraud protection class.

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5. Reduce the opportunity for scammers
   Discusses a universal problem. Seniors are the most vulnerable and every senior needs to read this book and follow the author’s suggestions.

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6. This book explains every kind of scam in existence, how they work and how to protect yourself against them. Every home should have a copy.

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7. Excellent livre

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8. Educational.

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9. Scammers took the world for 50 billion (that’s billion with a B) dollars last year. This book could save you a lot of grief!!

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10. I bought the Kindle version of this book on recommendation – about half of it I would say I was aware of but I’m not being complacent here. The other half was definitely worth buying it for. Written for the US market it would be good to see a version written for the UK but then the scams would work much the same, but the names of the various agencies would change. Worth reading if you want to improve your awareness and foresight and, of course, improve your security.

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