Last updated on March 19th, 2024 at 02:47 pm

In July of 2020, a man in Kansas City, Missouri used a stolen ID to buy a brand new, $58,000 Ford Explorer. The salespeople at the car dealership were obviously unaware as they took him through the whole process. He completed all of the paperwork necessary to buy the car and then drove the new vehicle home. The fraud was only discovered and investigated a year later when the person whose information was stolen filed a report. Luckily for the Kansas City car dealership and the police investigating, this criminal mastermind posted a picture of himself at the dealership standing in front of his new car. He was easily identified within an hour of the police sharing his picture and asking if anyone could identify him. But many criminals are smart enough to keep a lower profile than this one, meaning that many car dealerships sell cars to individuals using stolen identities and are never able to track them down. Identity verification for the dealership could have easily prevented this situation.

Selling a car to someone using a stolen identity is a costly mistake for any car dealership and can easily damage its reputation. Identity theft is at an all-time high, the criminals’ methods are growing ever more sophisticated, and car dealerships are a common target for fraud criminals. Having proper identity verification procedures in place can make all the difference when establishing that your customers are who they say they are, but it doesn’t have to draw out your sales process. IDScan.net has identity verification solutions that can be implemented seamlessly into your current system and will ensure that you are Know Your Customer compliant. 

Why implement identity verification procedures?

Counterfeit IDs are becoming more and more indistinguishable from legitimate IDs and it can often be hard to tell with the naked eye that an ID is a fake. Allowing our system to analyze an ID, compare it to our vast database of ID formats, and complete identity verification will help to ensure that every customer is who they say they are. Identity verification is essential in preventing fraud and protecting car dealerships from criminal activity. 

Benefits of identity verification for car dealerships

For IDScan.net, identity verification is the process of assessing the legitimacy of a customer’s identification document and comparing it to a picture of the customer, where applicable. Our ID validation technology confirms the ID, reduces fraud, and collects the information from the ID all by quickly scanning the ID with our identity verification scanner.

IDScan.net’s identity verification automation works by checking that the ID is formatted correctly on the front and back. It also checks that the information in the barcode matches what is displayed on the front of the ID. It then queries the USPS database to confirm that the address on the ID exists. 

This process means you can protect your car dealership without adding any extra steps. The process of selling a car already involves checking the potential customer’s driver’s license. Our scanning and authenticating can be performed instantly, and images of the front and back of the document can be taken simultaneously so there is no need to use external devices to scan or make a copy of the ID. A copy of the ID and the information it contains can also be stored in your database, allowing you to pull up a copy of it in the future if need be. 

Identity verification can also be completed in the car lot, if desired, by using our mobile scanners. The process described above is simply completed with a handheld device instead. This can be helpful with test driving, ensuring that the dealership knows exactly who will operate their vehicle in real-time.

Digital identity verification

Digital identity verification is also available to allow customers to conduct the identity verification process themselves via their smartphones. This can be used as a contactless solution to test drives. The COVID-19 pandemic has made us all a little wary of being in close quarters with a stranger, so many customers want to take test drives on their own. However, there must be some kind of theft prevention system in place when the salesperson won’t be accompanying the potential customer and we’ve made that simple with our mobile scanners. 

Customers simply open your app or click on a link sent via SMS and are prompted to take 3 images – the front of their ID, the back of their ID, and a selfie. They are told instantly whether their identity has been validated. The process works in the same way as it does with the in-office scanner, but our automation verifies that the person presenting the ID is the same as the person pictured, rather than the salesperson. It calculates a confidence percentage in facial match between the photo on the ID and the selfie supplied by the customer, the selfie is also run through anti-spoofing processes to assure it is legitimate.

Add third-party checks 

Knowing that your customer is who they say they are is essential, but wouldn’t it be great to know if the potential customer has a criminal history? Third-party checks can be added to the digital identity verification process in order to perform criminal background checks as well.

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