No matter what you sell, you're in the security business, fam. Especially dealerships, which house massive amounts of customer data and run in-house F&I. They're big targets.
AI-forged documents are getting harder to catch
Mosaic Compliance Services CEO Jim Ganther told CBT News:
AI-generated proof of income now carries real company logos and exact tax and deduction math.
Websites sell keys to generate synthetic identities for $500 for 30 days or $750 for 90 days.
Spoofed dealer websites can divert leads and capture credit applications.
The negligence claim
Ganther says dealers who skip available AI defenses could be found negligent, pointing to the 1932 T.J. Hooper tugboat case. No court has applied that case to a dealer missing AI fraud tools.
What's already required
The FTC's Red Flags Rule requires dealers to keep an identity theft prevention program.
It also requires an annual written report to the owner that identifies new risks and the policy changes to address them.
Lenders can push synthetic-ID losses back to dealers through repurchase demands. One dealer facing one pointed to his Red Flags program as his defense.
Check this month
Does your Red Flags program name synthetic IDs or AI-generated documents?
Is synthetic-ID screening turned on in your F&I software? It's often an optional add-on.
Are training and audits documented?
Who does the work
Money often gets used to cover gaps in skills, time and intentionality. A dealership that can build all of this into staff roles is in great shape. For many, though, the right experts on the partner or vendor side will be life-saving, as long as you vet them as hard as you'd vet a lender.
If I were running an F&I department, I'd put a cybersecurity obsessive in charge of it.
Consider this: If a lender asked tomorrow how your store would catch a perfect fake pay stub, what would you show them?
