"I wouldn't say you've lied, but it does appear you've recreated the truth."

Fraud comes in several forms. Some are subtle, taking the form of an “honest” mistake and transpositions or omissions. Other times fraud can be direct and bold. At Rent Recovery Service, we have reviewed tens of thousands of rental applications on delinquent tenants. A significant number are completely fabricated. From the applicant’s name and social security number to job, bank and personal references. Many delinquent tenants are better at writing fiction than holding down a job!

Reviewing an application is more than reading the information and determining its accuracy. An application conveys an “attitude.” An applicant may transpose numbers or omit information with the intent to mislead a landlord. If the landlord does not notice the “error” the applicant gets away with providing false information. If the landlord does notice it, the applicant simply responds that he has made a careless mistake and offers to correct it. It is at this point that the “attitude” may be displayed. Was it an honest mistake or an attempt to defraud the property owner?

You may never know for certain, but an unwillingness to immediately correct the error or a response like “you really don’t need to know that stuff” would be a red flag. An “attitude” of uncooperativeness or arrogance at the application stage may indicate an equally unpleasant experience throughout the tenancy. Use caution, especially when dealing with the more subtle types of fraud.

Although you may think that more direct forms of fraud are easier to catch, they are not.  The bolder forms of fraud include stolen or counterfeit forms of identification and often are used by smooth fast talking con artists that truly are professional cheats.  As for stolen identification this can be the most difficult. In this case, the con artist is pretending to be a real person with a real job, credit cards and probably great credit history.  How do you
know he is who he says he is?

Our experience with stolen identities take one or two forms.  Either the perpetrator knows the individual he is impersonating extremely well, or he has stolen a wallet or purse.  In the ladder, the applicant generally has limited knowledge of the person he is impersonating.  Believe it or not, they generally create an application that is a hybrid of truth and fiction.  The application will have the name, address, social security number, and other vital statistics reflected by the stolen identification.  The balance of the information, such as personal references, jobs and address history are usually consistent with the con artists real life!  Check out references and the inconsistencies will be glaring.

As to the former example of fraud, it may be the most difficult to detect.  At <link>Rent Recovery Service, we have seen countless examples of adult children using their parents' identification, ex-friends stealing identities from one another, and occasionally parents stealing the identity of their minor children.

In the first two examples, a lying applicant may know everything about the person he is impersonating.  Employment, address history, and bank account numbers are often verified or legitimate when cross checked against the other vital statistics provided.  The differences may be as subtle as a "Jr." or "Sr." designation that is omitted on an application but is displayed on a driver's license.  Carefully review the date of birth on a drivers' license and application with how old your applicant appears.  If he claims to be born in 1950 but appears to be in his mid twenties - wake up!

If you verify the bank account has been open for 15 years (see bank account verification) or the employer verifies he is a long term career employee eligible for retirement - wake up!  You would be surprised how frequently the need to fill a vacancy clouds the thinking of the many landlords.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that lately we have seen some fraudulent applicants using the name and social security number of a minor child, often a baby.  This has been a less frequent type of fraud but seems to be a growing concern lately.  The parent, abusing the child's identity assumes a clean credit and address history is better than his lifetime of delinquency.  Unfortunately, some landlords have been duped. They pull a tenant screening report and see it is effectively blank and assume no information is good information.

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