Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg P and L Podcast. I'm Pim Fox.
Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Abramowitz. Each day we
Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for
Speaker 1: you and your money, whether you're at the grocery store
Speaker 1: or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg P and L
Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot com. Well,
Speaker 1: if real fraud were not enough, how about synthetic identity fraud.
Speaker 1: Here to tell us what it is is Jeffrey Finstein.
Speaker 1: He is a vice president of Global Analytics at Alexis
Speaker 1: Nexus and an expert on synthetic identity fraud. Jeffrey, thank
Speaker 1: you for being with us. What is it? What is
Speaker 1: synthetic identity fraud? Hello, I'm glad to be here. Synthetic
Speaker 1: identity fraud of a really complicated type of fraud that
Speaker 1: we're seeing emerged since roughly two and twelve, and it
Speaker 1: requires a great deal of coordination. And what really happens
Speaker 1: is synthetic identities are these Frankenstein like identities that are
Speaker 1: created by fraudsters, and these identities don't correspond to real people.
Speaker 1: They basically create false identities and they register them, register
Speaker 1: these identities and the credit system with the purpose of
Speaker 1: stealing from companies. And it's not just banks that they're
Speaker 1: stealing from the they steal from all sorts of types
Speaker 1: of companies in particular telecoms, utilities, thin texts, and even
Speaker 1: the government. So, Jeffrey, just to get a sense of
Speaker 1: what this would be, uh, if you played it out,
Speaker 1: a person would create a false identity that they would
Speaker 1: have no qualms about walking away from, leaving a lot
Speaker 1: of bills unpaid for services that they took under their
Speaker 1: real identities. That's exactly right. So what what the fraudster does?
Speaker 1: They create a new identity that doesn't really correspond to
Speaker 1: their true identity, and they curate that identity to make
Speaker 1: them look like better and better customers. So they pay
Speaker 1: their bills on time, and they let that relationship with
Speaker 1: their financial institutions evolve so they're sure rating credit and
Speaker 1: they're becoming good customers. And then what happens is, over
Speaker 1: a period of weeks or months, or it could even
Speaker 1: go on as years, they simply poof disappear and that
Speaker 1: that negative activity doesn't really correspond to a true identity.
Speaker 1: And in fact, that's the big challenge for financial institutions
Speaker 1: that there's no true victim so well, except that they
Speaker 1: are a victim, because that means that there are bills
Speaker 1: that are unpaid out that are outstanding, presumably at the
Speaker 1: end uh, that somebody walks away without paying. But I'm wondering, Jeffrey,
Speaker 1: can you give a sense of what kind of scope
Speaker 1: we're talking about. How big of a problem is this.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say for sure, because financial institutions don't
Speaker 1: always know they've been they've been a victim. So what's
Speaker 1: really happening is they see a really good customer they
Speaker 1: just stop paying their bills, and many financial institutions might
Speaker 1: assume that that's just a consumer that's fell on hard times. Uh.
Speaker 1: And also it's pretty recent, which means we don't have
Speaker 1: a whole lot of time to look at macrowick and
Speaker 1: mc trend's. But let me share a couple of numbers
Speaker 1: with you. For the last ten to fifteen years, around
Speaker 1: seven million new identities enter into the credit system, and
Speaker 1: a surprisingly consistent over that ten to fifteen years. The
Speaker 1: little bit of fluctuation we tend to see is usually
Speaker 1: related to either fluctuations and birth rate about fifteen years
Speaker 1: prior or immigration rate, and and so what we see
Speaker 1: is that stable number. Whoever, since two thousand and twelve
Speaker 1: to about today, we've seen a ten percent increase in
Speaker 1: that number that had been historically stable. And in fact,
Speaker 1: when you start digging into these new identities, we've seen
Speaker 1: almost an eight increase in the number of suspicious identities,
Speaker 1: and that is suspicious synthetic identities entering that system. And
Speaker 1: in fact, just speaking to a risk manager at a bank,
Speaker 1: uh this was a week or two ago, they actually
Speaker 1: indicated this was an eight digit problem. That's tens of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars of meaningful losses to that financial institution. So,
Speaker 1: is there a situation where you have collection agencies that
Speaker 1: are trying to collect money that is due a company,
Speaker 1: whether it's a telco or a bank, they're trying to
Speaker 1: collect from people who do not exist. That's a that's
Speaker 1: a really good point and it's part of the problem.
Speaker 1: So in true name fraud, what happens is that the
Speaker 1: consumer victim will raise their hand and work with the
Speaker 1: bank and essentially that gets wiped from the system as
Speaker 1: part of their fraud operations. But because these these synthetic
Speaker 1: or these Frankenstein consumers just disappear and they're treated as
Speaker 1: credit risk. You will see them all through the life cycle,
Speaker 1: and we do see them on collection files when we
Speaker 1: help customers figure out, Hey, why why this collection program
Speaker 1: not working? It's pretty common to see that there are
Speaker 1: synthetic identities drifting into those collections programs. Jeffrey, has there
Speaker 1: been any progress made in identifying the types of people
Speaker 1: who create these identities? I mean, it seems like it's
Speaker 1: a relatively sophistic CADD scheme in that people are curating
Speaker 1: uh their credit worthiness over a particular period of time.
Speaker 1: This doesn't this takes This takes quite a bit of effort. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is definitely a full time job for those fraudsters
Speaker 1: who are committing these sorts of fraud. And while I
Speaker 1: can go through it, I don't want to say too
Speaker 1: much because I also don't want to give instructions over
Speaker 1: the radio and how to create these identities. But what
Speaker 1: we see is these fraudsters working in identity factories. It's
Speaker 1: almost like an assembly line of smoke and mirrors to
Speaker 1: create these Frankenstein identities. And in fact, we know of
Speaker 1: one in the state of Pennsylvania that created seven thousand
Speaker 1: of these fake identities. And what's interesting about that is
Speaker 1: when you look at your own history, your your identity
Speaker 1: has really evolved at the speed of life. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is there are key milestones when
Speaker 1: you register a car, You've got a driver's license, your
Speaker 1: registered to vote, you got credit and so forth, and
Speaker 1: that's a relatively slow my grace. In a true identity, however,
Speaker 1: these identities factories are really scaled for time, and what
Speaker 1: that means is they don't evolve that quickly. They evolved
Speaker 1: for a profit motive as opposed to a true life motive.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, That makes perfect sense. Jeffrey Finestein, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. Fascinating synthetic synthetic identity fraud. Uh,
Speaker 1: definitely an interesting development. Jeffrey Finstein is PhD and Vice
Speaker 1: president of Global Analytics at Lexis Nexus. We are still
Speaker 1: digesting all the details of the horrific mass shooting at
Speaker 1: a country music festival near Las Vegas on October two yesterday.
Speaker 1: Joining us as Chris Paul Mary who is in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: He is the Beera chief for Bloomberg in Los Angeles. Chris,
Speaker 1: can you just give us first a sense of the
Speaker 1: mood right now in Las Vegas. I'm sure you've been
Speaker 1: there before. Has it changed, Yeah, it's it's definitely very somber.
Speaker 1: This is just coincidentally the start of the Global Gaming Expo,
Speaker 1: which is the largest trade show for the casino industry.
Speaker 1: Twenty six thousand people from all around the world coming in.
Speaker 1: So uh, some speakers had canceled, some spoken were you know,
Speaker 1: very choked up. There were you know, signs of increased
Speaker 1: security everywhere. Uh, it's it's definitely had taken a sort
Speaker 1: of a toll overall, and usually a party city. Chris,
Speaker 1: what about the increased security measures? We know that for
Speaker 1: example worldwide sporting events, whether it's the FIFA World Cup,
Speaker 1: you know, you go to an event like that, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be scanned and there's gonna be someone with a
Speaker 1: wand do you see those kinds of products in evidence today?
Speaker 1: I just saw that for the first on yesterday at
Speaker 1: the Wind Resort, where anybody that wanted to walk into
Speaker 1: the hotel had to get their bags checked and and
Speaker 1: be wanted, you know with the metal detector. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know that, you know, we're in immediate aftermath the some
Speaker 1: of the MGM properties were on lockdown. And they were
Speaker 1: checking ideas of people who wanted to come in to
Speaker 1: make sure they were guests. But I haven't seen any
Speaker 1: other patinos he had adopted what Win had done. Steve
Speaker 1: Win has always been a leader in the industry. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I did speak to some casino as actually
Speaker 1: said that that very may wear it very well be
Speaker 1: the future of anybody that comes into building, because that
Speaker 1: that there was really no other way to prevent the
Speaker 1: situation with the shooter, with the guns in the hotel room.
Speaker 1: He wasn't attending the concert. Yeah, well, I mean, Chris
Speaker 1: that that was sort of what struck me is how
Speaker 1: does a person how many guns did he have? Eighteen?
Speaker 1: How many he had? A whole arsenal that he brought
Speaker 1: up to a high floor of a hotel and and
Speaker 1: from that perch uh massacred fifty nine people. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's it's sort of amazing, frankly, that that could happen
Speaker 1: at all, amazing amount of planning to on his end. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I think he checked in on Thursday. You know,
Speaker 1: he had more gear than just all those guns, and
Speaker 1: he hit some sort of hammer that he could break
Speaker 1: those windows which are very thick. Uh. He had a
Speaker 1: stand that he could rest the weapons on to get
Speaker 1: a better shot. Just you know, amazing and it's diabolical nature. So, Chris,
Speaker 1: are we getting any more details behind the motivation? I
Speaker 1: have read a number of stories saying that he was
Speaker 1: not connected with anybody else, that the threat has come down.
Speaker 1: But are there any more details behind what actually transpired? Yes? Um,
Speaker 1: it's um it's a big, you know question mark because
Speaker 1: you know, I spoke to security people and there were uh,
Speaker 1: you know, no signs really uh, you know, typically on
Speaker 1: these active shooters of them, if some sort of warning
Speaker 1: speak this body leave the manifesto whatever. Uh, this guy
Speaker 1: seemingly came out of nowhere. Chris, Uh is Nevada is
Speaker 1: an open carry state? Correct? I think the thirty one
Speaker 1: states that allow open carrying of handguns. And this was
Speaker 1: not a handgun, of course. Uh, there was a measure
Speaker 1: just recently trying to get the background checks in tighter
Speaker 1: gun control. Everyone here are sort of focus on the
Speaker 1: morning and the events and immediate security. But I would
Speaker 1: imagine if the days come and president visits will be
Speaker 1: a much greater focus on on gun control. I wonder
Speaker 1: what the mood is among some of the casino operators.
Speaker 1: I mean, this has to be a huge blow for them.
Speaker 1: I mean, on a personal level, it's always just devastating
Speaker 1: to see this type of death toll. But aside from that,
Speaker 1: going forward, I would imagine that people would rethink some
Speaker 1: of their plans to Las Vegas unless there's some very
Speaker 1: clear measures to prevent this type of thing from happening again. No, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I it's it's to school intern analyzed. I
Speaker 1: said that that it happened during the start of this convention,
Speaker 1: but I think it definitely sends a message because you know, executives,
Speaker 1: you know what's happened before, because you knows there's been
Speaker 1: a massive shift here in Las Vegas to create you know,
Speaker 1: you used to be they try to keep people in
Speaker 1: the casinos. Now they're opening the doors literally with events, concerts, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, creating a pedestrian friendly areas in front of
Speaker 1: the hotels. So as they focused on you know, these
Speaker 1: more experiential as they call them, you know, experiences that
Speaker 1: you know, they've got to take consecurity a lot more
Speaker 1: into consideration. They've got to look at things from all
Speaker 1: angles and act like the Secret Service and think about
Speaker 1: you know, tall buildings, and constant vigilance during events, and
Speaker 1: it's going to be a different world. You know, Chris
Speaker 1: as l a bureau chief. You go from California where
Speaker 1: they have a strict uncontrol rules and regulations, but you know,
Speaker 1: firearms are allowed, and to uh Las Vegas, which is
Speaker 1: really an international tourist destination. Is there any conversation or
Speaker 1: any debate that you've heard about limiting the access of
Speaker 1: people who carry firearms legally to various private properties. Not immediately,
Speaker 1: but you're just a little color. I went yesterday to
Speaker 1: this place called Battlefield, Vegas, which is one of these places,
Speaker 1: and they are quite a number of them, very close
Speaker 1: to the strip where you can go fire machine guns,
Speaker 1: and in this particular place looked like a natural guard arsenal.
Speaker 1: I mean they had tanks and the employees were wearing
Speaker 1: fatigues and there were people there. There were there was
Speaker 1: I was, I don't know what the regular day is like,
Speaker 1: but you know, I talked to some guys who said, hey,
Speaker 1: we scheduled this before you know, they're walking out with
Speaker 1: these targets that are full of machine gun bullet holes. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, there were tourists from me as you know,
Speaker 1: getting a picture taken on tanks. Uh uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the manager I didn't want to talk to me, but
Speaker 1: you know, there is very much, uh you know, a
Speaker 1: desire in some communities to have this kind of access.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be the tether of work going forward. Well,
Speaker 1: is that the subject of discussion just among people who
Speaker 1: you encounter as you walk around Las Vegas. Initially, I
Speaker 1: think it was really focused on on just the shock
Speaker 1: and the UH and the and the enhanced security. I
Speaker 1: did speak to the visit the former Boston Police commissioner
Speaker 1: who was there during the Boston UH marathon attack, and
Speaker 1: you know, he did bring up the subject of gun control.
Speaker 1: He said he would have thought would been an issue
Speaker 1: a lot earlier with Sandy Hook and that. And he's
Speaker 1: actually speaking this morning to the to the convention, so
Speaker 1: we'll see what he has to say there. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it'll be uh more of a conversation as
Speaker 1: that as the initial shock ward off. Well, apparently, you know,
Speaker 1: and this's just coming from Greg Jared who says, you know,
Speaker 1: you cannot carry a firearm into an establishment that has gambling,
Speaker 1: and most casinos do not allow concealed weapons even if
Speaker 1: you have a concealed weapons permit, you can be refus
Speaker 1: used entry because, as I said earlier, it's a private business.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Chris Palmry he is our Los Angeles Bureau chief, reporting
Speaker 1: from Las Vegas. Well, we want to visit right now
Speaker 1: with Rebecca LENLN, executive analysts for Cox Automotive, because of
Speaker 1: course we got many of the sales reports this morning,
Speaker 1: Toyota GM posting the biggest US sales gains on the
Speaker 1: post Harvey hurricane demand, and she joins us here in
Speaker 1: our eleven three oh studios. Rebecca, always a pleasure, Thanks
Speaker 1: for being with us. What do you make What do
Speaker 1: you make of this report? I think that we've seen
Speaker 1: some fantastic sales coming out. They basically have beat all
Speaker 1: of our analyst estimates. And I think it's a combination
Speaker 1: of things. It's really pent up demand from the hurricane
Speaker 1: because a lot of people didn't shop in the last
Speaker 1: few weeks both of August and September, and so we
Speaker 1: have some pent up demand there. And then we also
Speaker 1: have fantastic incentives. We've got great new products coming out,
Speaker 1: We've got a stock market at record levels, high consumer confidence,
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of fantastic reasons to go out and
Speaker 1: buy a car, and there's great new product coming out
Speaker 1: as well. Well. This is such a shift in tone
Speaker 1: because just a few months ago, a lot of automakers
Speaker 1: were talking about how they're expecting to see sales declines.
Speaker 1: They were seeing sales declines, resale values of cars were
Speaker 1: going down all of a sudden. Now, is this really
Speaker 1: a shift in the overall landscape landscape for automakers, or
Speaker 1: is this really a blip that is due to the hurricanes.
Speaker 1: It's more of a blip, And I don't think that
Speaker 1: we're necessarily going to see this continue, you know. So
Speaker 1: so come as we report in on October sales on
Speaker 1: November one, I think we could see some decline. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, people that are getting insurance payouts
Speaker 1: may still be shopping in October. So I think it's
Speaker 1: hard to say now the full impact of the hurricanes
Speaker 1: and how that plays out over the next few months.
Speaker 1: And again, if we think about product, we've got a
Speaker 1: new Cameray, We've got a new Honda Chord that I
Speaker 1: just drove last week. So we've got some really high volume,
Speaker 1: really good vehicles coming out The difficulty through withen is
Speaker 1: that because we had a record setting every month, it's
Speaker 1: gonna you know, it's hard to beat that record. So
Speaker 1: we're always going to be down a little bit. Yes,
Speaker 1: although you know you said they're such great incentives. Incentives
Speaker 1: are great for the buyers, they're not that great for
Speaker 1: the manufacturers because that means they're expect accepting a lower
Speaker 1: profit margin. And yes, they are coming off of an
Speaker 1: exceptionally good year, but they've seen weakness in a lot
Speaker 1: of areas and their profits have sort of have reflected that. Well,
Speaker 1: General Motors still making nine billion dollars in profits fair enough.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's important to remember that this
Speaker 1: is not the industry of two thousand seven, eight and nine.
Speaker 1: This is a much more disciplined, much trimmer industry. And
Speaker 1: so you know, a coming like GM has shed brands,
Speaker 1: uh Chryslers shed models. So we're in a situation where
Speaker 1: even if they incentivize, we are still making some really
Speaker 1: healthy profit numbers. Let me just give you an example,
Speaker 1: and I want your reaction to this. If you want
Speaker 1: to buy in camera and you want to finance it,
Speaker 1: they'll give you five dollars bonus cash zero percent a
Speaker 1: p R and seventy two months. Yes, So as a
Speaker 1: former employee of the f D i C, I do
Speaker 1: look carefully at some of these credits and credit worthiness
Speaker 1: and such. You know, one of the we own Kelly
Speaker 1: blue Book Dealer dot com Auto Trader, so we're able
Speaker 1: to track a lot of different parts of the industry.
Speaker 1: And the number one thing that I that I caution
Speaker 1: consumers against is over extending themselves. You do not want
Speaker 1: to go for a seventy two or eighty four month
Speaker 1: loan because then when you trade that vehicle in, you
Speaker 1: probably will owe more than it's worth. So I would
Speaker 1: just caution people. Let's talk Tesla talk that everyone loves
Speaker 1: to hate and yet that just won't die. We saw
Speaker 1: them having manufacturing difficulties, unable to fulfill uh the production
Speaker 1: amounts that they had expected. Shares are down a bit
Speaker 1: knocked down as much as money people would like. Um,
Speaker 1: do you think that they have a chance given the
Speaker 1: fact that the Detroit automakers are ramping up their electric
Speaker 1: and automotive car units. So you know, a Lisa, It's
Speaker 1: Tesla is First of all, I'm a huge fan of
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. I think that we need people like him
Speaker 1: to push our industry. So so you said something nice
Speaker 1: about him, Yes, but I do. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: his technology is amazing. I think that his and you know,
Speaker 1: the people that buy into his dream of changing the
Speaker 1: face of mobility. He has given people a very clear
Speaker 1: why why does he want to do this? And people
Speaker 1: have reacted to that, and I think that his products
Speaker 1: are amazing as well. The challenges that once he goes
Speaker 1: through those five thousand people that have a deposit on
Speaker 1: the Model three, is he adding two thousand new deposits,
Speaker 1: you know, to make to to as that demand gets filled.
Speaker 1: So I think that that's the challenge, is getting people
Speaker 1: to buy his electric vehicle, and not just by his dream.
Speaker 1: Dream is costly, right, because I mean he's not making
Speaker 1: any money. He is not making any money, but apparently
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter to Wall Street because they're buying into
Speaker 1: the dream as well well. And he owns a lot
Speaker 1: of the shares too, So that's one thing that a
Speaker 1: lot of short silus will raise because it's hard to
Speaker 1: uh to borrow very expensively more than a little it.
Speaker 1: And you know, somebody very much smarter than me had
Speaker 1: mentioned that they're wondering with auto sales. You know, let's
Speaker 1: say those five thousand people, those people are kind of
Speaker 1: out of the market a little bit, like they're waiting,
Speaker 1: you know, so there's some pent up demand for people
Speaker 1: that have a deposit on the Model three that are
Speaker 1: saying I'm not going to buy Maybe I'm not going
Speaker 1: to buy that Chevy Vault or Bolt because I'm waiting
Speaker 1: for the Model three. So you know, it could be
Speaker 1: impacting the market a little bit as well. Rebecca Linlin,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Truly of wonderful
Speaker 1: to speak with you. Rebecca Linlin is an executive analystic
Speaker 1: Cox automate of talking about the fantastic sales numbers that
Speaker 1: we've been getting out. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: p m L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to
Speaker 1: interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast platform you prefer.
Speaker 1: I'm pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one before the podcast.
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