Noam Izaki on Synthetic Merchants: The Next Big Threat in Fintech?

Yeah.

So I'm gonna tell you about, you know, some of the scams that we've been seeing.

One thing is, I tell everybody on my podcast whenever we're discussing about finances or whatever, you're a business owner, you need to make sure you're signed up for Credit Karma or whatever other Equifax free protection for your, you know, Social Security number because your Social Security number is everything when it comes to your personal life and even more important for your business.

And if your identity is stolen and used by one of these synthetic merchant guys, because that's exactly what's going on, and I'm gonna tell a, a story and we'll listen to how No- Noam is gonna tell us how he would stop this.

So the, the worst one that we got didn't-- we didn't...

Thank goodness none of these people caused any financial damage to our company, our partners, the bank, the processor.

We, we, we stopped it, we stopped it dead in its trails, but we had a very sophisticated, um, Chinese scammer, and we know this person was definitely, uh, Chinese, and they s- they sent us an application that everything looked real.

It all checked out.

The person picked up the telephone, called us.

They actually stole somebody's identity.

They-- I don't know how.

They, they stole the person's Google My Business page, took it over, took over their website, took over the phone at the business.

They were answering the phone at the business because they got the-- they changed the phone number on the actual website, okay? So ch- they really, they, they did it.

And, um, we, they got approved.

We sent them a credit card machine.

We started to see some really strange pattern of transactions coming through, so we shut the account down.

Uh, they didn't get any money.

Their bank account was later, we found out it was frozen, and the guy stopped answering the phone.

And then a few days later, we went back and checked online, and I guess the business, the actual business owner figured out that somebody hijacked his stuff and somehow he got back control of it.

How? I don't know how the guy got back control of it.

We actually spoke to the actual owner of the business.

We tried to get ahold of the synthetic signer person, but, uh, that person never called us back, and that, that's kinda crazy.

But the other pattern we see is, and this one is kinda stupid because we're not gonna fall-- I'm not gonna fall for this one.

We get an increased amount of people and filling out our form, and then their websites are all Shopify sites.

And then all these businesses are home-based.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna tell you about, you know, some of the scams that we've been seeing.

One thing is, I tell everybody on my podcast whenever we're discussing about finances or whatever, you're a business owner, you need to make sure you're signed up for Credit Karma or whatever other Equifax free protection for your, you know, Social Security number because your Social Security number is everything when it comes to your personal life and even more important for your business.

And if your identity is stolen and used by one of these synthetic merchant guys, because that's exactly what's going on, and I'm gonna tell a, a story and we'll listen to how No- Noam is gonna tell us how he would stop this.

So the, the worst one that we got didn't-- we didn't...

Thank goodness none of these people caused any financial damage to our company, our partners, the bank, the processor.

We, we, we stopped it, we stopped it dead in its trails, but we had a very sophisticated, um, Chinese scammer, and we know this person was definitely, uh, Chinese, and they s- they sent us an application that everything looked real.

It all checked out.

The person picked up the telephone, called us.

They actually stole somebody's identity.

They-- I don't know how.

They, they stole the person's Google My Business page, took it over, took over their website, took over the phone at the business.

They were answering the phone at the business because they got the-- they changed the phone number on the actual website, okay? So ch- they really, they, they did it.

And, um, we, they got approved.

We sent them a credit card machine.

We started to see some really strange pattern of transactions coming through, so we shut the account down.

Uh, they didn't get any money.

Their bank account was later, we found out it was frozen, and the guy stopped answering the phone.

And then a few days later, we went back and checked online, and I guess the business, the actual business owner figured out that somebody hijacked his stuff and somehow he got back control of it.

How? I don't know how the guy got back control of it.

We actually spoke to the actual owner of the business.

We tried to get ahold of the synthetic signer person, but, uh, that person never called us back, and that, that's kinda crazy.

But the other pattern we see is, and this one is kinda stupid because we're not gonna fall-- I'm not gonna fall for this one.

We get an increased amount of people and filling out our form, and then their websites are all Shopify sites.

And then all these businesses are home-based.