In the case of vehicle transportation, marketplaces are online “load boards” where car owners, dealerships, and manufacturers post vehicles that need to be shipped from one location to another. Central Dispatch claims to be the largest vehicle load board They say Its website states that thousands of vehicles are posted on its platform every day. It is part of Cox Automotive, an industry giant that owns major vehicle auctions, AutoTrader, Kelley Blue Book and other businesses that work with auto dealers, lenders and buyers.
This system worked very well until about two years ago, when organized fraud gangs began compromising broker and carrier accounts and exploiting loopholes in government licensing to steal goods with surprising ease and alarming frequency.
Theft may start with a phishing email that appears to come from a legitimate load board. The recipient, broker or carrier, clicks on a link in the message, which appears to go to the real site – but upon logging in, the victim’s username and password are sent to a criminal. The crook logs in as the victim, changes the account’s email and phone number to re-route all communications, and starts claiming lots of high-end vehicles. Cox Automotive declined an interview request but said in a statement that “the load board system still works well” and that “fraud affects a very small portion of the listings”.
“Every time we come up with a security measure to stop fraudsters, they come up with a countermeasure.”
Bill Wolf, a regional director, National Insurance Crime Bureau
Criminals also take advantage of the lax regulatory environment to gain access to online markets. While accessing online marketplaces requires legitimate U.S. Department of Transportation registration, it is not difficult for bad actors to register fake transportation companies and obtain a USDOT number from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the agency that regulates commercial motor vehicles. In other cases, criminals compromise the FMCSA accounts of legitimate companies and change their phone numbers and email addresses to impersonate them and steal large amounts of money. (USDOT did not respond to a request for comment.)
As Bek Abdullayev, founder of Super Dispatch, one of Central Dispatch’s largest competitors, explained in a episode of podcast Auto Transport Co-Pilot“The FMCSA is authorizing what appear to be fraudulent companies – people who are not who they say they are.” He said people can “game the system and … get paperwork that makes (them) look like a legitimate company.” For example, vehicle carrier insurance can be obtained quickly – even if temporarily – by submitting an online application with fake payment credentials.
The bottom line is that crooks have found myriad ways to present themselves as genuine and permitted vehicle transport brokers and carriers. Once a vehicle is hired to be transported, they often repost the car to the load board using a different fraudulent or compromised account. While this type of sub-contracting, known as “double-brokering”, is sometimes used by companies to save money, it can also be used by criminals to hire an unwitting accomplice to deliver a stolen car to their desired location. “They’re booking cars and then reposting them and sending them on different routes,” says Yariv, a West Palm Beach transportation broker.
“A lot of this is cartel driven,” says the Nevada DMV’s Decker, who also serves on the vehicle fraud committee for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. “There’s so much money in it that it rivals drug sales.”
Even though this problem is becoming increasingly well known, fraudsters continue to steal, largely with impunity. Brokers, auto industry insiders and law enforcement told MIT Technology Review The Load Board and USDOT have been very slow to catch and sanction bad actors. (In its statement, Cox Automotive said it is “dedicated to continually enhancing our processes, technology and education efforts across the industry to fight fraud.”)
