Synthetic fraud: Ways to keep your identity safe

KIRO 7 is profiling one field of financial fraud commonly known as “synthetic fraud” or synthetic identity theft.

It’s when some real info from a victim is combined with fake info to create a new ID to commit financial crimes.

With the advent of regular identity theft, a whole industry of credit monitoring and protecting personal info has been created. People can freeze credit, get fraud alerts, or sign up for credit monitoring.

The Federal Trade Commission and the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) say synthetic fraud is often used to bypass those protections. It stems from the fact that only a bit of your real personal info has been used to create a fake person.

There are some things you can do to stop synthetic ID theft. The ITRC says one common sense solution is to secure your Social Security number by keeping it at home in a safe place and don’t repeat it out loud.

Those measures have been advised for any form of identity theft. Another recommendation is to shred documents with identification info like bank statements and other forms.

Digital security software can help protect your personal info and keep track of things. AARP, Experian, the ITRC and the Better Business Bureau of Washington have all recommended that people look out for the latest phishing scams, suspicious texts or email messages that are trying to get some — but not all — of your personal info. Getting that little bit of info can be used to create a fake persona.

President and CEO of the ITRC, Eva Velasquez, says synthetic fraud often targets children, but there are things you can do to protect yourself and your kids.

“Keeping them safe and keeping their data, their PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is part of the parental role. I hate to put more on parents and that’s just the world we live in. There’s a couple of things you can do, freeze your children’s credit — it’s free,” said Velasquez.

Rod Griffin, senior director of public education and advocacy with credit firm Experian, also says that the credit monitoring services are also on the lookout for potential fraud that could be associated with synthetic identity theft.

“The thing to understand about credit reports is if a (Social Security number) that belongs to a minor is reported to us we will immediately notify the lender so they can stop that transaction,” he said.

You can review your credit reports and your child’s credit report.

You can place a security freeze on your credit reports so new credit accounts cannot be opened in your name or possibly your child’s name or info.