Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
All Content > Impact/Investigative > Northeast

Title of entry: 
Out of the shadows: Exposing how credit repair schemes cost lenders billions

Issue or Publication date:
Oct. 3, 2022

Publication name: 
Auto Finance News

Publishing/parent company: 
Royal Media Group

View Website home page:
https://www.autofinancenews.net/

About the Publication:

Description of the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

Pandemic-accelerated shifts in how the auto finance industry does business and transacts with its customers have opened unprecedented opportunities for fraudsters, to the tune of close to $5 billion in 2021 alone.

The volume of digital auto finance transactions grew 282% year over year in Q2 2022. As lenders have rushed to leverage automated credit-decisioning tools and streamline the auto financing process, they are falling prey to fraudsters and their synthetic profiles.

For "Out of the shadows: Exposing how credit repair schemes cost lenders billions" the Auto Finance News team created a synthetic identity to investigate and demonstrate the speed and ease with which bad actors are able to falsify income and employment information to take advantage of the recent proliferation of automated lending platforms, clearly showing financiers just how synthetic identity fraud is accomplished.

The story grew from several previously published AFN stories and reporting on the recent surge in digital auto finance transactions that has taken place since the COVID-19 pandemic forced car buyers out of physical dealerships and online to shop and apply for credit.

For this piece of service journalism, the team interviewed fraud analysts, executives from Ally Financial, VW Credit and law enforcement, among other executives, and employed data to track the increasing cost of cyber fraud for the auto finance industry. The story includes images of messages sent by fraudsters, and of fake paystubs, identifying warning signs lenders should look for and providing insight on a multibillion-dollar issue it must address now.

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https://www.autofinancenews.net/out-of-the-shadows-exposing-how-credit-repair-schemes-cost-lenders-billions/