Exposing how credit repair schemes cost lenders billions

For the last two months, the Auto Finance News editorial team has been investigating income and employment loan fraud and efforts by scammers to sell credit privacy numbers, fake pay stubs and false verifications of employment to help consumers obtain credit, including auto loans.

These documents can be purchased publicly on social media platforms, giving buyers the ability to apply for an auto loan with a false identity. In fact, many fraudsters also offer verification-of-employment services, affirming the falsely created information on pay stubs and income statements sent to lenders.

But just how easy is it for bad actors to obtain documents falsifying income and employment records? How quickly can they put together basic information necessary to apply for a loan?

For our investigation, AFN created a fictitious person and obtained a credit privacy number and fake pay stub for her and verified her false employment history with a company in Georgia. See how we did it.