Fraudsters turn to synthetic identity theft
Criminals pair stolen Social Security numbers with fictitious personal information.
Fraudsters are nothing if not resourceful.
But gone are the days of dumpster diving for credit card carbon papers—as is the relative ease of fabricating new plastic with stolen account numbers, which is no longer such an enticing proposition as EMV chip cards now dominate consumers’ wallets.
If instant gratification is getting hard to come by, what’s a would-be identity thief to do?
The answer is, as it turns out: Be patient and commit synthetic identity fraud.
Traditional identity (ID) theft is well-known: A criminal obtains enough personally identifiable information to open fraudulent credit accounts in a victim’s name or take over existing accounts.
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