CreditMiner and TransUnion now are working together to stop auto finance fraud from happening, beginning with what can happen at dealerships.

Last week, the firms announced a new partnership to protect the automotive industry from high dollar losses from synthetic fraud via an application programming interface (API).

CreditMiner and TransUnion said through a news release that dealerships nationwide now can identify fraudsters, potentially eliminating losses by properly identifying high risk consumers.

“Incidence of synthetic fraud in auto lending has grown faster than any other financial sector as we emerge from the pandemic, nearly a 30% increase since Q1 2021.” said Satyan Merchant, senior vice president and automotive business leader at TransUnion. “The rapid growth of synthetic fraud — which is defined as building a fake identity over a period of a year or more — is becoming a complex issue.

“Synthetic fraudsters look like real people with great credit scores and well-established employment, which makes it very difficult for dealership personnel to identify,” Merchant continued.

CreditMiner chief operating officer explained Sam Vukas that the company’s tool, IDENTIFY, encompasses various driver’s license verification integrations as well as the use of mobile phone selfie biometrics.

“This solution utilizes the vast combination of technologies TransUnion brings to the table to protect dealerships from sophisticated thieves,” Vukas said in the news release.

Ken Luna is vice president of strategic partnerships for CreditMiner.

“We realized that the growth of synthetic fraud in the automotive industry was continuing to grow so we decided to focus our API efforts in the dealership arena and the vendors that serve them,” Luna said.

“What we like about TransUnion was they are ranked by Javelin, an independent agency, the top fraud prevention solution in the industry,” he continued. “These solutions are already being used in the lending industry but are not prevalent at the dealership level where most of the transactions occur, whether it be online or in person.”