I’ve previously discussed the practice of one person registering for a gig work or another account, and another person (perhaps underage) using it. See my posts from October 2023, June 2025, and January 2026.
Well there’s more news on the account renting front:
“Identity verification and background screening are not what these companies do, and conducting them effectively would require implementing infrastructure most have no reason to build on their own.”
The author is from Trua, “a reusable verified identity and screening company.” Good for Trua in pointing out the problem and a possible solution (buy beats make here).
And presumably Trua catches the cases in which the fraudsters themselves get defrauded. Namely, when Bill rents Jane’s identity, not knowing that Jane has already rented that identity from Margaret. We are in subletting territory here…
Speaking of which, if you want to “rent” Bredemarket’s marketing and writing services, talk to me.
“Leveraging their 2024 Login.gov Next Generation Identity Proofing Blanket Purchase Agreement (NG BPA), Xcelerate Solutions and their subcontractor Socure were awarded a five-year, $163M call order for Functional Area Three on May 1, 2026.”
“Diamond Capture Associates, a woman-owned business specializing in enterprise technology consulting and large-scale government implementations, and Incode Technologies, a global leader in identity security and fraud prevention, today announced the award of a $37.4 million contract from the General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Service’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS).
“Under this call order, Diamond Capture Associates and Incode will support the Login.gov Next Generation Identity Proofing Blanket Purchase Agreement (NG BPA), a critical federal initiative focused on strengthening digital identity verification and reducing fraud across government services.”
When I assembled the final video, the result definitely belongs in the Awareness category. Because the assortment of pictures definitely won’t convert.
It doesn’t even dwell on the pivoting message: namely, that when identity, biometric, and technology leaders face product marketing challenges, the old way may not solve these challenges. When the old way doesn’t work, pivot to something that will.
No, the video doesn’t say any of that.
But if you’ve heard of Bredemarket outside of the video, you already know the marketing and writing services I provide for identity, biometric, and technology firms.
Compelling CONTENT Creation
Blog posts. Among other projects, I’ve authored a multi-month blog series to attract business to a client.
Case studies and testimonials. Among other projects, I’ve written a dozen case studies to justify a firm’s capabilities to its projects.
White papers. My white papers have made the case for the superiority of my clients’ products and services.
Winning PROPOSAL Development
Proposal services (managing, writing, editing, other). My proposals have won business for Bredemarket clients and for my former employers.
Actionable ANALYSIS
Analysis services. My market, product, and competitive analyses for Bredemarket clients and former employers have not only gathered necessary information and insights, but have also suggested a path forward.
Act Now
So how can your tech firm benefit from this content?
If you are ready to stop losing prospects, act now and book a free 30 minute content needs assessment and talk to Bredemarket.
Do your user consent procedures drive your users away?
When a product deals with personally identifiable information (PII), the product vendor is nornmally required to obtain one or more types of consent from their users: consent to process the data, consent to store the data, consent to use the data in algorithmic traijing, and possibly others.
When the consent notice appears on the user’s screen, they will react in one of two ways:
They will provide the requested consent without hesitation.
Something about the consent request frightens them so much that they uit the process right then and there.
It’s yet another example of the abandoned shopping cart problem, where people stop shopping (or in this case consenting) and the seller loses money from a lost sale.
How can you get the first group to 100% and the second group to 0%?
By avoiding these three mistakes.
Mistake 1: your consent request is too vague
What if you ask your users for consent to use their data, but don’t explain how you’re going to use it?
Now some people will sign the consent form anyway, thinking that your company would never do evil things…until they do,
But more discerning people will become immediately suspicious and start asking questions…or just not bother to ask questions and abandon your process.
Mistake 2: your consent request is too detailed
To protect themselves legally, compliance teams often insist on dense, intimidating language full of terms like immutable identifiers, third-party processors, and permanent data storage retention protocols.
Now some people will sign dense documentation even if the fine print requires them to hand over their first born. Others won’t.
If you’re required to talk about immutable identifiers due to some regulation or another, add a preface that explains what immutable identifiers are.
Mistake 3: your consent request doesn’t have a time limit
Some privacy regulations require that companies managing data only keep the data for a specified amount of time. Your consent request should comply with these regulations. If you don’t, you’re in trouble.
But even if your local regulations don’t mandate a time limit for storing data, impose one anyway.
Think about the practicality of it. Let’s say you’re requesting resumes for job applications, and I submit one. How useful is that resume going to be to you ten years in the future?
Conclusion
Don’t frighten your users. Ensure that your consent process is easily understandable, not overwhelming, and explains what the users need to know.
Oops, I did it again. Because LinkedIn employment fraud persists. Let’s see if the fraudsters have become smarter since November 2024.
As previously promised and as previously executed…
I’ve spent over 10 years in identity and biometrics, and other factors, including one-to-many identification, one-to-one verification, and classification (e.g. how old you are).
But as I have noted in an old article in the Bredemarket newsletter The Wildebeest Speaks, verifying someone’s identity only goes so far.
(For people reading this on LinkedIn: here comes #honeypot79, for those paying attention.)
For example, how many LinkedIn users sporting a green banner and an #opentowork hashtag have been approached by a person claiming to be from Company X…who is NOT from Company X?
That, my friends, is #employmentfraud – something that the REAL employees at all the Company X’s out there take very seriously.
Of course, no #fraudster who is doing something like that would be foolish enough to send me a LinkedIn InMail with such a claim…would they?
In 2021, I wrote a series of posts on the topic of communicating benefits, not features, to identity customers. The first post in the series is here; click at the top of the post to view the other three parts. (And yes, it was originally supposed to be a three-part series, until I wrote a fourth part on a company’s distinct voice.)
But if you don’t want to wade through four Bredemarket posts, just wade through the following two words:
But if that’s too short for you, I plunged into the Google NotebookLM world and repurposed the four posts as three separate pieces of content: an infographic, a podcast, and a video.
The benefits over features infographic, “Winning the Identity Customer”
I’ve never created a NotebookLM infographic before, so I was interested in seeing how this would turn out.
Infographic from Google NotebookLM.
It’s busy, but ALL infographics are busy. And I like how it visualizes the response-time differences between rapid DNA, biometrics, and computer aided dispatch, where “real time” can mean very different things.
We on the AFIS side learned this the hard way when we introduced ourselves to our new colleagues.
“Hi, SCC folks, welcome to Printrak. You’re joining a company that sells REAL TIME AFIS that delivers results within one minute! Aren’t you impressed?”
The ex-SCC people responded, gently disabusing us of our pretensions to speed.
“Hello, new corporate overlords. We provide computer aided dispatch systems that send police, fire, and medical personnel to crime scenes and emergency sites as soon as possible. If our CAD systems took AN ENTIRE MINUTE to dispatch personnel, PEOPLE WOULD DIE. We use really powerful computers to get personnel dispatched in a second. Enjoy your real time AFIS…amateurs.”
So the company Printrak learned that it needed separate benefit statements, depending upon the product line the company was promoting at any given time. The CAD customers received one set of benefit statements, while the AFIS customers received a separate set.
Because there are different benefits for different “hungry people.”
The benefits over features podcast, “Sell the Outcome, Not the Math”
Unlike infographics, I’ve created multiple NotebookLM podcasts over the years. If you’re not familiar with NotebookLM podcasts, they have two distinct…um…features.
The podcasts feature a male and female speaker chatting with each other about the subject matter.
The podcasts are relentlessly positive. If you are feeling down in the dumps, upload your resume to NotebookLM and have the two speakers talking about how wonderful you are.
Anyway, here’s how the two speakers treated my source material.
The benefits over features video, “Stop Selling Features”
Despite the fact that I haven’t been able to customize the video so it doesn’t have the NotebookLM “look.” One identity/biometric company is sharing these videos, and I can tell immediately that it’s NotebookLM content.
Nevertheless I wanted to see the video that I got.
Video from Google NotebookLM.
And I finally figured out that if I explicitly upload specific pictures into NotebookLM, they can appear in the final video. Look for this one at the three and a half minute mark.
Perhaps I’ll experiment with some of the other output available in NotebookLM, although there are some formats that I will probably never use.
If I’m going to create a slide deck, I’m going to create it myself.
I don’t really have a use for flash cards, mind maps, or quizzes. Unless you, my readers, REALLY REALLY REALLY want to be quizzed on benefits and features.
But I now have these three pieces of content. And perhaps the next time I discuss this topic, I can drag the infographic out of my WordPress media library.
You’ll recall that I initiated a Zelle transfer to my account at “the blue bank,” but the blue bank “placed this transfer on hold so they can conduct further review.”
With no word on what the blue bank was reviewing. And the “blue bank” representative whom I spoke with on Saturday didn’t know either.
I had already ruled out the simple explanations, such as either the sending Zelle account or the receiving Zelle account didn’t exist.
I figured that perhaps my use of Zelle was the issue. The day before I sent the “on hold” transaction, I had sent another transaction. I figured that two transactions in two days tripped up some odd alert of possible account draining.
Neither of these turned out to be the issue.
On Monday (just after I had rated the “blue bank” 5 out of 10 for its handling of the issue; coincidence, or no?) I received a call from someone at my local “blue bank” branch.
Turns out that the issue was the COMMENT that I attached to the Zelle transfer.
My comment referenced another individual. Without revealing this person’s personally identifiable information (PII), I will state that his first name begins with a K, his last name begins with a P, and he is a “Junior.” So because acronyms are wonderful, I referred to this person as “KP2” in the Zelle transfer field.
Which was an extremely evil thing to do, because that tripped up an anti-money laundering check.
“AML.” Google Lyria. Public Domain.
Basically, anti-money laundering checks verify that a person isn’t transferring money for a sanctioned person.
And I didn’t trip up just ANY anti-money laundering check.
This one was bad.
AML catches evil people.
Really bad.
AML catches evil people.
How bad?
Let’s look at ISO 3166 country codes. The alpha 2-digit country code for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is…KP. KP-02 is the specific administrative code for South Pyongan Province (Pyeonganbuk-do).
Back to the call I received from my local “blue bank” branch. The representative didn’t go into all that, but just said that my comment about “KP2” looked like a reference to North Korea.
I burst out laughing.
I gave the “blue bank” representative the full name of K[REDACTED] P[REDACTED] Junior, explained that there were five “KP”s, and that I used numbers to tell them apart.
Ironically, both “KP2” and “KP4” are veterans. I wonder if they realize their initials associate them with this guy.
Bredemarket 