The ongoing battle against synthetic identity fraud has reached a critical point, as credit repair companies now play a major role in exacerbating this pervasive form of fraud.
Synthetic identity fraud now comprises 85% of all identity fraud cases and cost businesses billions of dollars annually. In 2020 alone, financial losses stemming from synthetic identity fraud exceeded $20 billion, and experts see no signs of this trend abating, as outlined by CNN.
Individual consumers are not the only victims of fraud. Companies across many industries lose vast sums to synthetic identity fraud. For example, a report by Point Predictive found that synthetic ID costs auto lenders about $1.8 billion a year. Criminals try to steal nearly $14 billion annually using synthetic IDs, the company said.