Your cost: $1.8B

It's alive: that is, synthetic-identity fraud, sometimes called the "Frankenstein of fraud," is alive and kicking. In fact, it's a booming business. Experts say that what dealers and lenders can do about it is to process credit applications by the book, following the Federal Trade Commission's Safeguards Rule aimed at keeping private consumer information private, and the FTC's Red Flags Rule aimed at catching inconsistencies in credit applications.