Synthetic Identity Fraud

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Protect your business from synthetic identity fraud with LexisNexis® FraudPoint™ UK

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What is synthetic identity fraud?

The perfect crime? Low risk, high reward

Unlike traditional identity theft, where criminals use real, stolen identities, synthetic identity fraudsters create fictitious identities using a mix of real and fake personal information. This sophisticated fraud requires criminals to invest time and effort in establishing a legitimate credit footprint with lenders before ‘busting out’ by securing a substantial line of credit and disappearing without a trace.
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Synthetic ID

Slipping under the radar

Traditional fraud prevention systems often fail to detect synthetic identities because they appear to be trusted, legitimate customers. Fraudsters build credit scores by making timely payments and maintaining good credit behaviour, making it difficult to distinguish them from genuine customers until it’s too late. When they cash out, fraudsters make large purchases, take out significant loans, or hire high cost items leaving businesses with untraceable debt.

‘Frankenstein’ identities

Synthetic identities, also known as ‘Frankenstein’ identities, are fictitious personas that don’t correspond to real individuals. These identities are created using manipulated or fabricated details to pass soft identity checks and build credibility. There are two main types:

  • Manipulated Synthetic Identities: Use altered real identities to hide previous histories or connections to real consumers, helping these identities to gain access to lines of credit or services.

  • Manufactured Synthetic Identities: Completely fabricated identities or combinations of real and fake information, posing a greater risk as they are harder to detect.

How to detect synthetic identity fraud

Key questions for risk assessment

Despite their complexity, there are tell-tale signs of a synthetic identity, such as a lack of life history, no proof of existence from trusted sources, and manipulated personal details. To detect synthetic identity fraud, it’s crucial to focus on several key aspects:

  • Is this person who they claim to be?
  • Are they manipulating their data?
  • Is their contact information genuine?
  • Are these details stolen?
  • Has this person ever existed?

Identifying hidden risks

Fraudsters often recycle key information within synthetic identities such as addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. Identifying these common data points within applications and customer profiles can help organisations to flag potential hidden risk and links to organised fraud networks.
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LexisNexis® FraudPoint™ UK
Synthetic Identity Model

Monitoring and targeting synthetic identity fraud in the UK

The LexisNexis® FraudPoint™ UK synthetic identity model leverages advanced data and our powerful LexisNexis® LexID® linking service to monitor and target emerging risks.

Real-time risk insights

With over 1,000 insights for risk assessment, FraudPoint™ UK empowers businesses to make more informed decisions on potentially fraudulent applications.

Predictive analytics models

Our predictive analytics identify high-risk factors for synthetic identity fraud and flag potentially suspicious accounts, providing outputs including a Fraud Score and Risk Band, along with individual attributes.

How much of a problem is synthetic identity fraud for your organisation?

Initial Assessment

Identifying synthetic identities is challenging, so an initial assessment of your portfolio to uncover hidden risks is often the best way to understand the exposure risk to your business. Retro batch testing or in-life testing are both available and our analytics consultants can explore which is best for your particular requirement. This initial assessment allows you to ringfence suspicious accounts or applications, conduct further investigations, and reduce the risk to your business.
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Fast Turnaround

For retro analysis we can deliver actionable data within 4 weeks for attribute append services and 8 weeks for bespoke model builds, ensuring timely insights to protect your business. For in-life testing, we can work directly with your development team to integrate directly with your existing workflows, providing you with full control of the service.

We also work with many partners to deliver services through your business’s existing integrations your business already has to minimise development resource needs for you.

Request a retrospective data test

Discover the impact of synthetic identity fraud on your organisation and take the first step towards robust fraud prevention with our retrospective data test. Contact us today to get started.

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