They’re not just fraudsters; they’re document fraudsters: Frank Abagnale counterfeited checks. Bernie Madoff forged financial statements. Anna Sorokin photoshopped fake bank statements.  

Document fraud is a crime as old as time, but methods used to create fraudulent documents continue to become more sophisticated. The availability of fake document generators and ‘novelty’ document sellers online — combined with the widespread use of sophisticated image-editing software like Adobe Photoshop — have made this type of fraud easier than ever to accomplish, and also more difficult to catch. 

Nowadays, less than 10% of document fraud is visible to the human eye. Many of the adjustments to names, account numbers, balances, and transactions simply can’t be seen. As a result, countless cases of fraud and credit abuse go undetected. 

Our team at Inscribe has combined the power of AI with the world’s largest and most diverse network of documents in order to make invisible fraud signals, visible. Our machine learning models continue to evolve by processing millions of documents each month, which makes it possible for us to uncover trends in how fraudsters are evolving their document manipulation techniques. 

And we’ve put together the key trends identified within our data in our brand new 2023 Document Fraud Report. Some of the takeaways include:

• First-party fraud is just as prevalent as third-party fraud. 12% of fraudulent documents have only the identity details edited (a sign of third-party fraud), while 42% of fraudulent documents have only financial details edited (a sign of first-party fraud). And 46% of fraudulent documents show alterations to both identity details and financial details. 

• Fake documents are easier than ever to acquire. Document templates (counterfeit, fake, or forged documents purchased online) have become an increasingly popular tool for fraudsters, with 2022 seeing a 3x increase in unique document templates detected. 

• The most frequently manipulated documents include tax forms, business filings, and bank statements. Specifically, W-2s and CP-575s, along with bank statements from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, TD Bank, PNC, and Navy Federal Credit Union. 

At Inscribe, we aim to supercharge your risk and ops teams by providing document fraud trends, tried-and-true prevention methods, and industry-leading detection technology. We care deeply about the problem of document fraud and are dedicated to helping companies outsmart fraudsters with AI. 

Grab your copy of our 2023 Document Fraud Report today, or reach out to speak with a member of our team.