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Is Synthetic Identity Set To Hit All Time Record This Year?

Author

Frank McKenna
August 29, 2023

Hope you're having a great week Fraud Fighters

The answer to the question above is yes. In fact, it already has, and TransUnion has the numbers to show it.

Here are the top stories of the week right here. 👇

Let’s dig into these top stories now.

Screw Me Once, Shame on You, But Screw Me Twice?

What on earth is going on here? The most infamous festival con artist in history, Billy McFarland, is back promoting the same fraud scheme that landed him in jail for four years - Fyre Festival 2.0.

He apparently wrote a 50-page plan in solitary confinement of how he would pull off this festival.

Last week, he started selling tickets with no venue, artist booked, or plan in what he called a “presale”. And guess what? 100 suckers shelled out $499 for those tickets. He claims to have “big backers” of the festival, so why does he need $50,000?

And he’s not stopping there; his website shows his plan of slowly fleecing suckers in more ticket sales over the coming months - progressively selling tickets for higher and higher prices. This is a clever way of building the fraud scheme slowly.

But that’s not the worst part. Billy MacFarland still owes all those poor small businesses in the Bahamas that he completely screwed over with his fraud- $26 million!

Synthetic Identity Is Back With A Vengeance

TransUnion released a new report last week. And it’s a doozy, reporting that Synthetic Identity fraud is now at an all-time high - $3 Billion in synthetic identity balances tracking for the first six months of 2023.

Just to give you some context, TransUnion reported a relatively low $855 million in balances two years ago. And guess who is getting the brunt of it?

Auto Lenders.

At Point Predictive, we have been ringing the alarm bells on this issue for a while. The pandemic catalyzed over 1 million new fraudsters, and now they are targeting cars.

Why? Because cars are cool. And with a good car, you look rich and can brag on Instagram.

Synthetic Identity Is Back With A Vengeance

It's back. frankonfraud.com/fraud-trends/synthetic-identity-is-back-with-a-vengeance

Can You Tell Which FrankonFraud Voice Here Is AI? 🤖

Imposter scams and BEC attacks are going to explode for one reason - Voice clones are now near-perfect and indistinguishable from the real thing.

I started using Resemble.AI last year to experiment with cloning my own voice and the result was robotic. I don’t think it was very good but it was just the start of these AI voice services.

Check it out - this is from December 2022. 👇

Face it, that probably wouldn’t fool anyone.

I decided to try again, this time with ElevenLabs.IO, and the AI models have now vastly improved.

I am shocked at how close the AI cloned my own voice. It only took me 60 seconds to produce a near-perfect voice clone!

One of these voices is the real me, and one of these is an Ai generated version of me where my voice was cloned and I typed a script in for the robot to read.

Can you tell which one is real, and which one is fake?

Is This The Real Me? (First Video)

Or Is This The Real Me? (Second Video)

Lets Take A Poll - Which video was the real FrankonFraud?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Want to read more about my views on the Voice Clones?

High Drama - Fraudsters and A “Walker” Get Arrested Printing Checks at Chase

You hear the term “Walker” all the time. It refers to an older person who is used as a straw man by fraudsters to cash bad checks because they know banks will not be as suspicious.

Earlier this year, police were called by Chase about a fraud in progress. When they arrived to arrest the man, the bank manager notified him that there was also another man who was with him who left in a black Mercedes. The police put out an APB on the Mercedes while they stayed and interviewed the older man named Burnie.

Burnie claimed over and over again “They forced me to do it”.

Meanwhile, the officers chased the Mercedes and the driver threw 13 fake ID’s out the window.

Catch the dramatic video here!

Are you Seeing This Too? Fake Accounts Galore Are Flooding LinkedIn

LinkedIn needs to do more to stop Pig Butchering scams. I recently read this excellent blog post by Assaf Kipnis on the Pig Butchering Scam Victim Journey which began on LinkedIn.

Have you noticed a massive increase in the number of fake accounts or Account Takeover involving LinkedIn accounts? I have.

Then this morning I received this connection request

When I looked at the profile it had all of the red flags you would commonly see with a profile setup for scams; it’s a new account, it has very few followers, it has very little real post or activity.

So I did a reverse image search and found pages full of LinkedIn accounts with the same picture.

Check this out👇

And there were more than just these! This is all I could fit on that page.

I reported so many fake accounts to LinkedIn in the last 2 days they won’t let me submit anymore.

This reminds me how important it is for social media to step up and do their part to prevent scams and fraud. This should be so easy for them to prevent.

T-Mobile Does It Again With The Fraudulent Sim Swapping 🤦

If you have a T-Mobile phone, maybe it’s time to consider another carrier. They can’t seem to stem the wave of sim swapping and data breaches.

This week, Kroll released a security incident report stating that a cyber threat actor targeted a T-Mobile phone belonging to one of their employees.

T-Mobile, without any contact from Kroll or the employee, transferred the phone to the hacker who then went on to steal data from several Crypto platforms.

Kroll Employee Got Sim Swapped - Data Breach Ensued

We were recently informed that on Saturday, August 19, 2023, a cyber threat actor targeted a T-Mobile US., Inc. account belonging to a Kroll employee in a highly sophisticated “SIM swapping” attack. Specifically, Learn more

They’re Cutting Off Internet In Thailand Border Towns To Stop Pig Butchering Scams

The Thai Government is cracking down on Pig Butchering Slave Compounds run by Chinese Gangs by cutting off their internet connections.

Mammoth call centers housing thousands of scammers have emerged in towns bordering Thailand and Myanmar and that is the area where the Thai Government is cutting off connections to the world.

Tens of thousands of workers globally have been trafficked into these centers which began to take hold around 2019 and accelerated after Myanmar’s 2021 military coup.

These SteakHouse Dudes Bought A $2 Million Jet With PPP Fraud Dough

The gall. They run one of the country’s top steakhouses but they are now accused of one of the most brazen frauds of the year.

Famous and wealthy restauranteurs David Pisor and James Laskey allegedly took out a PPP loan for their $7.6 million and shelled out $2 million of that money for an expensive jet.

The government calls it “rampant misappropriation of PPP funds”. That’s an understatement!

One of the Country’s Best Steakhouses Allegedly Spent $2 Million in Pandemic Funds on a Private Jet

Investors in the popular steakhouse are suing the company for using PPP money on personal expenses.

BS High School - Portrays An Awful Guy That Made Students Take Out PPP Loans

HBO has just released another doozy of a documentary - BS High School. 

At the center of the film is Coach Ron Johnson - the self-proclaimed “honest liar” and con man who creates a fake high school and proceeds to create one of the biggest scandals in high school sports history.

His elaborate lies are exposed throughout the documentary but the icing on the cake is when he cons all of the student-athletes into applying for EIDL loans under the guise that it will pay the tuition they owe.

Thanks to Steve Lenderman for bringing this shocking documentary to my attention.

It’s a great documentary and I highly recommend it if you like watching about absolute scoundrels.

Major News - Scam Victims Can Get Money Back Now On Gift Card Scams

Thanks to Mary Ann Miller for the tip on this one.

Millions of Americans have fallen for the gift card scams. They scratch off the coating on the back of the card, give the code to the scammer and đź’Ąpoofđź’Ą, their money is instantly gone.

But According to the FTC, now some gift card companies are now monitoring for fraud and scams and freezing funds when they suspect it. And best of all, they hold that money so if victims request their money back - they can get it!

Woo Hoo, Chalk up a win up for scam victims and advocates.

Victims Can Get Money Back Now On Gift Card Scams

The good news is there may be ways for people to recoup funds they have inadvertently funneled into the hands of criminals.

PayPal Is Launching 3 New AI Products Within 120 Days, At Least One For Fraud

PayPal’s Chief Product Officer, John Kim, says fraud is big business and is doubling down on the power of AI to attack it.

In an interview with the Associated Press, he says they are planning on launching three new products with ties to AI in the next 120 days some of which will pertain to fraud.

One example he gave was a solution that looks for patterns where fraudsters are trying to test your stolen card out to see if it's good or not — and alert you through the PayPal wallet so you can get that card shut down with your bank quickly.

Who was headed to the IAFCI Conference in Tampa Bay this week? I was scheduled to attend and speak and then suddenly got the news that the Hurricane was forcing the evacuation of all the hotels in the area.

So sorry to everyone who got negatively impacted.

If you are stuck there, I wish you all a safe return home soon! To all the other fraud fighters that I was looking forward to meeting - until next time.

Have a wonderful and positive fraud-fighting week!