Is it money? Probably. Is it fame? Sometimes. Is it a fat, balding middle-aged man posing as a hunk on an online dating service to get a date? Could be, but let’s try not to think about that one. Perhaps it’s the desire to get away with something, the thrill of the chase. The general consensus is the reason someone fakes his identity is to just be able to pull a con and get something that doesn’t belong to him, i.e. a credit line or a blank check to a stranger’s bank account.

In the 2002 movie “Catch Me if You Can,” Leonardo DiCaprio plays the lead role as Frank Abagnale, Jr., a real-life con artist who successfully forged checks and made millions of dollars by posing as all sorts of professional men, including a commercial airlines pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, and a prosecutor. In the movie, it shows him as so successful that the FBI asks for his help in catching fellow check forgers. In real life, Abnagale now lives in the Midwest and runs a multi-million dollar corporation teaching the good guys how to foil the bad guys’ attempts to steal their money. In fact, Abagnale’s success is quite rare. Most con artists are caught and don’t get a sweet deal that ultimately leads to a successful legitimate career. They just get a one-way ticket to prison.

Computer identity theft, one of the fastest growing crimes on the internet, owes its success to many factors. The simplicity of most technology today, coupled with the increasing intelligence of computer-savvy thieves, makes stealing someone’s identity through his or her log in pages as well as numerous social websites almost as easy as stealing candy from a baby.

The thieves just love it when a naïve person goes on the web and starts putting their personal information all over the place thinking their anti-virus protection will keep them safe. They especially love it when folks click that ever popular log in button on most social network sites that says “remember me.” Sometimes when you are hopping off a public computer such as at a library or cyber cafe, there is someone right behind you happy to see where you’ve been and what’s in your wallet. The only way to protect against identity theft is to arm yourself with knowledge as to how to keep your personal information safe. It’s definitely worth the time to learn so that you aren’t caught with your guard down.

Although Bernard “Bernie” Madoff can’t really be described as someone who faked an identity to take money from people, he certainly falls under the category of one of the most convincing con men alive today, having bilked an estimated $18 billion from investors in the largest Ponzi scheme in history. The fact that he preyed on fellow Jews as well as family and friends, earns him the distinction of one of the most heartless of all con men. Madoff will spend the rest of his life in federal prison, having received a maximum sentence of 150 years.  So, it’s ironic that people up and down the east coast are being warned to think twice before bidding on items purported to having been owned by Madoff, as many fake items are showing up at several auction houses from Miami to New York. Some people never learn.

And finally, sometimes an identity theft can be fueled by nothing more than a misguided attempt at recapturing youth. Take the case of the mom who stole her daughter’s identity and tried out for the cheerleading team before being arrested. Evidently, this not so-mom of the year, Wendy Brown, used her daughter’s birth certificate, social security card and other identifying documents to become enrolled at a Green Bay, Wisconsin high school so she could try out for cheerleader, something she’d always wanted to do when she was a teen.

“Pom Pom Mom” as she’s been dubbed, actually succeeded in becoming enrolled, but, as luck would have it, on her first day of school, she was arrested on an unrelated misdemeanor charge. When she didn’t show up for school, the truancy officer investigating the absence discovered the identity theft. There was no intent to scam money or fame or even a date out of this identity scam, just a mom feeling deprived of a childhood and wanting to fit in at school. One has to wonder why, but then again, some might ask “why not?”