Police have revealed a victim of identity theft, whose details were allegedly used to purchase a vehicle from a North Melbourne dealership in May, stressing the need for thorough identity checks in high value transactions.
In a world where cyber crime and identity theft are so prevalent, experts revealed to A Current Affair, how troubling this case was, given the extent of information needed to make the $42,000 vehicle purchase.
A Current Affair writes: “The alleged thief, who took the victim’s identity, was seen on camera wearing office attire when she walked into the car dealership on May 4 and allegedly used a stolen identity and fake ID to take out a car loan.
The Melbourne car dealer, Steven Pipertzis, has worked in the car industry for 15 years and said although businesses are always subjected to some sorts of fraud, he had never seen someone commit identity theft before.
“It’s gone through its normal verification checks and balances, we’ve submitted it to an external finance company who takes care of our settlements, and everything looked validated and verified and legitimate,” he said.
Car expert James Ward from Drive said he’s not seen a case like this before.
“You do hear of cars being stolen, you do hear of people basically using identity theft as a way to extort money from people or to gain financial advantage, but this is a real person who’s come in literally pretending to be somebody else,” Ward said.”
Is the Conveyancing industry at risk?
There’s no reason an identity thief can’t attempt to insert themselves into the property transaction.
In any scenario where large fund transactions are involved, there is always a high risk for all stakeholders involved.
According to Scamwatch, Australians lost more than $10.7 million to identity fraud last year, with more than 16,000 incidents reported.
In order to protect your firm and clients against identity theft, ensure you’re using best practice for digital verification of identity.
By using the identification tool, triVOI, you’re able to conduct an identity verification using three crucial benefits which help prevent identity fraud, including:
- Document Verification Service (DVS) – DVS is a national online system that allows organisations to compare a customer’s identifying information with a government record. It matches key details contained on Australian-issued identifying credentials, providing a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer within seconds.
- Facial Recognition – facial recognition technology uses deep learning algorithms to detect facial patterns and match images regardless of angle, posture, lighting, facial hair or whether the user is wearing glasses. We complete a direct comparison between the government certified image and the self-taken photo to verify authenticity.
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR) – OCR lifts details directly from ID documents to pre-populate the VOI and your matter. This increases the accuracy of identity information, avoids manual data entry errors and saves time.
Unfortunately, there’s no predicting exactly where or when the next threat to the property transaction will occur. However, using thorough VOI tools can help you prevent any series harm befalling your firm.
For more information on triVOI and the benefits of using digital eConveyancing tools, contact us today or subscribe to the latest product and industry information in the monthly newsletter, The Conveyancer Digest.
