According to
motor finance news, a crackdown on
car finance fraud last year could have saved £123 million. The
motor finance industry pulled off a combined initiative to
combat attempted frauds at the application stage. The
vehicle finance move slashed fraud cases by 36 per cent in the
final quarter of 2008.
A team of members from the
Finance and
Leasing Association reported over 10,000
car finance frauds, the net worth of which exceeded 100 million
pounds. The reduction in fraud was carried out despite more
consumers choosing
dealer finance .
The most common form
of car finance fraud was on the application form, such as
making out a larger income. Other frauds included identity
fraud.
The director general of the FLA, Stephen Sklaroff, reportedly
commented: Fraud often increases in a downturn. Much is
opportunist, and it is a
credit to the sophistication of FLA members’ background
checks and credit scoring systems that fraud cases dropped 36 per
cent in the last few months of 2008, and only increased by 4 per
cent over the year. By tackling fraudsters in this way
dealers and
lenders prevent higher costs being passed on to the rest of us
and dealers can continue to provide good deals on the
forecourts.
