Daniel Berlind
CEOIn this article
As the leader in document fraud detection, we take our position in the market very seriously – our Fraud Forensics team is focused on keeping our customers safe from new threats. A recent example of a source of fraud is a website called freshdocuments.com, a site widely discussed on Reddit and other sources of fraud.
FreshDocuments.com: Initial Review
When a customer first turned our attention to Freshdocs, they were very concerned – after all, this service offered a “guaranteed” way for applicants to beat Snappt. Our initial reaction was simple: any fraudster can guarantee whatever they want since the applicant has no ability to report them. What are they going to do? Implicate themselves by alerting someone that the fake docs they purchased didn’t work?
That said, we take every report of a new fraud service seriously, so we immediately set about trying Freshdocs’ service to learn more information.
So, what exactly are they selling?
They were making some pretty big claims on their website and on Reddit, so what exactly were they selling? Some kind of tech? Fake documents? Real documents with undetectable edits?
It turns out they were selling a document with instructions on how to try to skip Snappt entirely. Their reasoning is as follows:
*Source: FreshDocs “Guaranteed” Snappt bypass
So, if they themselves are claiming that Snappt is impossible to beat, what were they recommending? Their 3 “Proven Techniques” are:
- Take a screenshot of a fake document, and then claim that you have no way to download a real document
- Password protect your document, and then claim that you either:
- Don’t know the password
- Can’t remove it for… reasons
- Claim that the Snappt website is down (yes, seriously)
I don’t know about you, but if I spent $300 on that bogus information, I would feel pretty cheated! To their credit, they also teach you how to lie:
What does this mean for you?
So, Freshdocs is obviously a scam and a pretty weak one at that, but that doesn’t mean that this information isn’t important. Over the life of Snappt, we have consistently seen a strong correlation between applicants who complain about something during the process (e.g., the website is down) and their documents eventually being ruled as fraudulent. This is further evidence that not only are fraudsters likely to realize these complaints might work but that there are others out there who are actively trying to teach these deceptive methods.
What can you do?
The next time that someone complains about these “issues” with the Snappt platform, push back. To borrow from Freshdocs, here’s a narrative that should work for you:
“You are telling me that the site is down, but according to their status tracker, they have 100% rolling uptime (i.e., the site can be proven to have not been down even once in the last three months, which is true). We also know that many ‘Snappt bypasses’ instruct applicants to try the exact technique you are using. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not lying and kindly ask you to submit your real documents.”
You can obviously say whatever you want to your applicants, but in general, remember that if someone is complaining, there is a statistically significant chance that this is a technique they are using to get around our system.
How can we help?
Our world-class CX team is on call to support you. If you have a question or concern, reach out and let us know.
Or, if you believe you have a lead on a new source of fraud, send it our way, and we will chase down answers for you. After all, we’re all on the same team when it comes to stopping fraud!
Chat with our sales team to learn about our comprehensive fraud solution