Recent trends in real estate fraud have made it imperative to authenticate the identity of your sellers to ensure you know exactly with whom you are conducting business. Instances of fraudsters impersonating the identity of property owners — and then listing the property for sale — has been increasing exponentially.
But what is the best way to “know your customer?” With terms thrown around such as verification, validation, authentication, etc., it can be confusing to know what steps need to be taken to ensure you can effectively put a stop to fraud...
What is ID Authentication?
By definition, ID Authentication is the process of authenticating the genuineness of the source of the data (e.g., the document). It involves verifying the physical identity document itself for authenticity, rather than just the data contained within it. This ensures that the physical document being presented was genuinely issued by a government agency and not a fake created by a forgery operation.
The difficulty from a transactional perspective lies in the fact that so many different types of ID documents exist. In the U.S., alone, there are more than 1,100 types of official, government-issued credential documents. This one fact renders it virtually impossible to authenticate a document without some form of tool or solution.
