The AFSA Vehicle Finance Conference just wrapped up, and was a must attend event for industry veterans seeking to turn the tide on fraud threats facing the auto lending industry.
AFSA Vehicle Finance Anti-Fraud Task Force Kicks Off
On Sunday, February 1st, AFSA’s Vehicle Finance Anti-Fraud Task Force convened its inaugural conference meeting, followed later on Tuesday with a panel: “The New Fraud Playbook: Synthetic Identities, Bust Outs, and What’s Next”
Combined, these events revealed a new commitment of AFSA members to strengthen the industry anti-fraud ecosystem. Panelist Yordanka Martin, Vice President and Senior Risk Officer of Ford Motor Credit, noted that the “key motivation of the task force is that the fraudsters seem to be more organized than industry as an ecosystem,“ and lenders must counter this threat by organizing themselves. The Vehicle Anti-Fraud Task Force, started in October 2025, already has 20 members.
Social Media and the Rise of Credit Washing
The Tuesday panel rewarded attendees with a deep dive on the latest fraud risks. Multiple panelists lamented the role of social media, particularly Tik Tok, as a vector for training ordinary citizens to engage in “credit washing” and other illegal practices. Credit washing refers to consumers expunging the worst debt on their credit report by falsely claiming identity fraud.
CFPB Disputes and Consumer Fraud Trends
Panelist Frank McKenna of Point Predictive Solutions, observed that credit disputes filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had surged in recent years from 80,000 to 500,000 annual complaints. Mckenna argued part of this rise is attributable to consumer fraud learned through social media.
McKenna also pointed to the continued proliferation of consumer scams related to purported consumer privacy numbers (CPNs). CPNs, which are in reality fake SSNs, are marketed as legitimate new numbers consumers can use to create a clean credit identity and to bypass their poor credit history.
Credit System Integrity at Risk
Kelly Dorn, Director of Enterprise Fraud, at Ally Financial, warned that “credit washing is a bigger threat than I think anyone really understands because it undermines the integrity of the credit systems that we all make decisions on.”
Dorn also noted that, “fraud hasn’t necessarily changed the schemes that we are seeing, but now with AI it’s made them better, harder to detect, moving faster, so we have to do the same thing as lenders.” She added that “What we can do is fight fire with fire.”
Emerging Fraud Trends Impacting Auto Lending
Panelists flagged a number of fraud trends for the audience:
- Fraudsters are creating synthetic identities by taking the Social Security numbers of expatriates, and holders of J-1 visas.
- Auto transport thefts are emerging as a problem. Fraudsters are stealing whole truckloads of cars (usually used cars) from auto auctions and while en route to a dealer.
- International scammers are cloning legitimate American dealer websites in the United States. Unsuspecting consumers, then go on these websites online, purchase phantom vehicles, send payments, and then never get a vehicle.
- Auto lending isn’t immune to romance scams either , as lenders are seeing cases where consumers purchase multiple cars for their romantic partners, who turn out to be scanners/
Fighting Fraud With Better Data, AI, and Collaboration
Dorn noted that law enforcement is a willing partner to prosecutive these crimes, but it is critical for the financial institution to do the work to prepare the cases so it is ready to go to the prosecutor. Martin of Ford Credit added that, ideally, it’s better to stop fraud before it happens because it’s so hard to recover the losses once fraud is initiated.
Panelists also expressed hope that industry could use the AI tools that are contributing to new fraud risks, to fight fraud. AI can find patterns in the data ordinary fraud analysts can’t see.
The panel closed by calling audience members to maintain diligence and work toward collaboration. Thank you AFSA for a great conference and moving the industry forward on these critical issues.
