Finance & Insurance

As vehicle sales fell sharply in the second quarter amid coronavirus pandemic conditions, the amount of subprime consumers originating auto loans slipped to its lowest recorded level, credit bureau Experian said this month. Melinda Zabritski, senior director at Experian Automotive, said subprime market shares have contracted for years after peaking …

Coronavirus-related closures of state motor vehicle departments this spring put a wrench in vehicle title work and registration processing, producing a backlog of unverified documents key to finalizing car sales. Without the ability to process vehicle registration and titling data under lockdown, state governments couldn’t perfect vehicle liens — legally …

While the Small Business Administration’s rapidly deployed Paycheck Protection Program shielded many from disaster, some automotive dealerships struggled to obtain the much-needed support. Some dealerships had trouble accessing the SBA website in the early days, and some of the documentation on the site didn’t meet compliance standards, according to Pete …

Stolen-identity fraud risk continues to rise during the COVID-19 pandemic because consumers are unwittingly arming would-be fraudsters with their personal information through a spate of successful phishing scams, consumer credit reporting agency TransUnion said.Scam artists always have had opportunities to steal consumer data, but it is more readily available to …

Credit washing, a major fraud concern before the COVID-19 outbreak, was put on the back burner by government forbearance efforts that preserve customer credit profiles from the negative input of late vehicle payments. But fraud experts fear the practice, in which scammers claim to be identity-theft victims and request to …

Synthetic identity theft, where scam artists cobble together an identity by blending real and fake information to obtain vehicles, has slowed somewhat during the coronavirus pandemic, credit bureau TransUnion says. Forbearance programs may be the main reason for the decline in synthetic identities being used in auto loan applications. The …

With masks required and online sales transactions becoming more common, dealerships are prioritizing fraud prevention during the COVID-19 era. Lori Church, director of compliance at Holman Automotive Group, told Automotive News that the dealership group — which has 42 stores in nine states — is using a “commonsense approach.” That …

Prime and above customers fled the new-car market in recent years, finding quality and cost-effective alternatives on used-car lots. But aggressive incentive activity from automakers in the second quarter reversed that trend, credit bureau Experian said last week, allowing captive automakers to reclaim market share of its most desired consumer …

Finance-and-insurance software provider Dealertrack is now capable of supporting a fully digital process after adding an electronic signature feature to its tool and integrating another so customers can remotely sign and submit any deal document digitally, the company said last month. Pandemic conditions accelerated progress of the technology, which was …