LISLE, Ill. -

CreditMiner and TransUnion are working together in an attempt to keep fraud from infecting dealerships.

The companies announced a new partnership this week that enables them to offer the automotive industry cutting-edge fraud prevention technologies via their API capabilities.

CreditMiner and TransUnion said dealerships across the nation can protect their bottom line from costly fraud by removing suspected synthetic identities from pre-screen campaigns and flag suspected synthetic applicants for additional vetting.

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

Ken Luna is vice president of strategic partnerships at 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,” Luna 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.”   

CreditMiner chief operating officer Sam Vukas added a preview of what to come at the company beyond this partnership.

“The synthetic fraud score is just the first step for us battling synthetic fraud at the dealership level,” Vukas said. “An even more intense and focused API offering we are calling IDENTIFY will be released in early 2022 that includes various driver’s license verification integrations as well as the use of mobile phone selfie biometrics.

“This solution will be a combination of technologies from multiple credit bureaus to keep dealerships in front of these sophisticated thieves,” he went on to say.