Synthetic Identity Fraud: A Growing Trend In ID Theft
By Mark Pribish, Director of Identity Theft Management Services 
Merchants Information Solutions, Inc.

Most consumers think of identity theft as a financial related event including their credit and debit cards, checking and savings accounts, and/or their personal, student, auto or home loans.  

A growing threat called Synthetic Identity Fraud – where thieves steal your social security number and connect it to a different name to create a new, fictitious person -- is becoming more common.

According to Tom Harkins, Chief Operating Officer for Edentify, a leading provider of identity management and fraud detection solutions, “One of the biggest misconceptions regarding identity theft is that it mainly involves credit.”  Harkins states that, “Approximately 70 percent of ID Theft starts with a non financial crime, such as someone using your social security number to apply for a job, which can lead to taking over your identity and then to committing Medical ID Theft.”

Generally speaking, there are five types of identity theft including:

• Financial ID Theft
  
• Social Security ID Theft
  
• Drivers License ID Theft
  
• Criminal ID Theft
  
• Medical ID Theft.

In addition to your social security number, Synthetic Identity Fraud can include fake and real consumer information – including partially changed names and social security numbers to create new identities.  

Synthetic Identity Fraud is unlike traditional identity theft – where an individual’s real name, social security number and other real identifying information is used without changing any of the stolen information – and the identity thief pretends to be you, the employee or customer.

Since Synthetic Identity Fraud does not take place with your real name, the fraud does not always show up on your credit report.  Conversely, if negative information is attached to another file that is linked to your file, this can negatively impact your credit report and credit score. 

Synthetic Identity Fraud can also be difficult for the credit bureaus and other, related organizations to detect as most of the information that is not an exact match can be difficult to reconcile.  This can be a challenge for the credit bureaus in detecting fraud or even inadvertent mistakes as other variations due to typographical errors, names changes (i.e. marriage), or a data base of similar names.

So to be clear, if a thief has your social security number -- with or without your name – that thief can commit ID Theft -- whether it is Synthetic ID Fraud or traditional ID Theft.  

My recommendation is to have an ID Theft membership program that includes daily monitoring, daily alerts, and a managed recovery service where a professionally trained, FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) certified Recovery advocate can support you or a family member in the event you or a family member becomes a victim of identity theft.