Frank Abagnale Quotes

Criminals look at identity theft and say only 1 in 700 criminals gets convicted of it. And they look at check forgery and they know that for every 1,400 forgers arrested, only about 123 get convicted and about 26 go to jail. So the rewards are great, but the risks are very slim. So that's one of the reasons that make it very popular.

What I did in my youth is hundreds of times easier today. Technology breeds crime.

Most people are fascinated by what I did as a teenager, but when I look back at my life, I don't think very much about those years. I was an opportunist and got away with things because I was very young, but I went to prison and came out and remade my life.

Every case involving cybercrime that I've been involved in, I've never found a master criminal sitting somewhere in Russia or Hong Kong or Beijing. It always ends up that somebody at the company did something they weren't supposed to do. They read an email, went to a website they weren't supposed to.

Dear dad, you always told me that an honest man has nothing to fear, so I'm trying my best not to be afraid.

A real man loves his wife, and places his family as the most important thing in life. Nothing has brought me more peace and content in life than simply being a good husband and father.

I don't use a debit card. The safest thing is a credit card because you're using the bank's money. If someone accesses your information, they are stealing the bank's money, not yours.

The police can't protect consumers. People need to be more aware and educated about identity theft. You need to be a little bit wiser, a little bit smarter and there's nothing wrong with being skeptical. We live in a time when if you make it easy for someone to steal from you, someone will.

If you happen to tell me where you were born, your date of birth and that kind of information, then I'm 98 percent of the way to stealing your identity.

My proudest moment was probably when my oldest boy finished law school and went on to become an FBI agent. It was just beyond my imagination that - with my background - my own son would become an FBI agent.

If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been "Catch Me In Two Days."

When people ask me about being portrayed onscreen by Leonardo DiCaprio, I always say, 'I love it - no matter how old I get, people are going to think that's what I look like.

The front of a cheque alone gives someone enough information to steal your identity.

It's not what a man has but what a man is that's important.

The former police chief of Houston once said of me: "Frank Abagnale could write a check on toilet paper, drawn on the Confederate States Treasury, sign it 'U.R. Hooked' and cash it at any bank in town, using a Hong Kong driver's license for identification."

When I was a child at sixteen, I was just a child. All sixteen year-olds are just children. As much as we like them to be adults, they are just children. And like all children, they need their mother, and they need their father. All children need their mother and their father. All children are entitled to their mother and their father.

In the old days, a con man would be good looking, suave, well dressed, well spoken and presented themselves real well. Those days are gone because it's not necessary. The people committing these crimes are doing them from hundreds of miles away.

Im a true believer that you have a moral obligation to keep your employees honest, and that is why you have controls, so Im never tempted or put in a position where I could do something to defraud my employer.

I was always in the right place at the right time, always willing to take advantage of an opportunity.

If you believe you have a foolproof system, you've failed to take into consideration the creativity of fools.

Why do the Yankees always win? The other team can't stop looking at the pinstripes.

I live a much better life without having to worry about people chasing me. I spent five years in prison from 21 to 26, which is probably the best part of my youth behind bars. I was in some very bad prisons overseas as well. It was not a fun life, it was a very lonely life in reality. I was a smart enough kid to know that I was going to get caught. The law sometimes sleeps, but the law never dies. I knew it was just a matter of time. I would be caught and I'd get punished and face the consequences.

I stole every nickel and blew it on fine threads, luxurious lodgings, fantastic foxes, and other sensual goodies. I partied in every capital in Europe and basked on all the world's most famous beaches.

Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse.

What bothered me most was their lack of style. I learned early that class is universally admired. Almost any fault, sin or crime is considered more leniently if there's a touch of class involved.

I look at my life today at 69 and I think about all the things that have happened after all my imprisonment. We truly live in an amazing country, America is where you can do things and pay your debt back to society and literally change your life if you want to.

Whether you're earning $7 an hour or $700,000 a year, it's very important to protect your credit rating.

Banks are so protected from liability they would have to really do something that was their mistake in order for them to be liable for it. Banks don't look at signatures. They're processing millions of checks and they have very little liability.

I always tell people what I did 50 years ago as a teenager is now 4,000 times easier to do today than when I did it. Technology breeds crime - it always has and it always will. There's always going to be people willing to use technology in a negative, self-serving way. So today it's much easier, whether it's forging checks or getting information. People go on Facebook and tell you what car they drive, their mother's name, where you are going on vacation, where you've been on vacation. There's nothing you can't research in a matter of a couple of minutes and find out about someone.