Q2 2026 freight fraud trends report

Freight fraud used to show up as a bad document. In Q2 2026, the most common identity failure came at a different step: the check that confirms a real, live person is in front of the camera.

Truckstop’s risk and trust teams audited 18,957 accounts in Q2 as part of ongoing freight fraud screening, up about 24 percent from Q1. IDVerification failures rose faster, up about 36 percent from Q1, and that increase came almost entirely from liveness failures in the IDVerification process.

For carriers and brokers moving freight right now, the change is inside the identity checks: which one fails most, and why.

What the numbers show quarter over quarter

IDVerification failures were about 22 percent of audited accounts in Q2, up slightly from about 20 percent in Q1.

Blocked access held near 5 percent of audited accounts in both quarters. Blocked access means an account was stopped before it reached the Truckstop network for that application.

Truckstop blocked 974 accounts in Q2. The largest reason, about 38 percent, was accounts that did not meet the requirements to operate on the board. About 26 percent were accounts whose identity or credentials the teams could not confirm against outside records.

One block reason stood out this quarter: applications made under an operating authority that was not the applicant’s own. Truckstop’s process is designed to block these applications when the authority holder on record does not approve the request. That reason grew from about 9 percent of blocks in Q1 to about 21 percent in Q2.

Accounts tied to inactive authority fell to about 5 percent, which is likely tied to the MOTUS rollout in May. A smaller group was stopped in security review, for a failed security check, an invalid business address, or an active complaint on file.

Truckstop’s teams investigated 107 reported cases of double brokering and freight theft in Q2, little changed from Q1.

Liveness is now the top cause of identity failure

The mix of IDVerification failures changed between the two quarters.

In Q1, government ID problems were the biggest cause of identity failure at about 51 percent, and liveness failures were about 18 percent. In Q2 those positions flipped. Liveness failures rose to about 44 percent of identity failures, the single largest cause, while government ID fell to about 35 percent.

Liveness failures more than tripled over the quarter, even though audit volume rose only about 24 percent. Government ID, face, and phone failures each fell over the same period.

The pattern points to more complete fraud attempts, where the live-person check has become the hardest step to fake. AI-generated faces are part of that shift, since a synthetic face can look right in a photo but still likely to fail a liveness check.

What a liveness check is and why it is in place

A liveness check is designed to confirm that a real, live person is in front of the camera during sign-up. It’s designed to separate a live person from a static photo, a screen recording, a printed image, a mask, or an AI-generated face.

A liveness check is not the same as a face match. A face match compares the person on camera to the photo on their ID document. A liveness check aims to answer a different question: is a live person really there, or just an image or recording?

Both checks exist because applicants attempting fraud often submit stolen or synthetic identity materials, not just one weak document. A generated or altered face can pass a quick visual review. That is why the liveness check is automated, rather than a person judging a photo by eye.

The Q2 liveness failures were attempts flagged at this step that a document review alone may not have stopped. A liveness check does not catch every synthetic identity, and it does not make any account fully secure. It is one layer among several in the review.

Keeping the Truckstop network safe is a shared effort

Truckstop’s IDVerified screening at sign-up stops part of the problem before it reaches the board. The rest depends on the carriers and brokers on each end of a load. Confirm the other party yourself through FMCSA records and a known phone number before you book or haul. That check does work no sign-up screening can do for you.

Truckstop’s risk and trust teams run Truckstop’s IDVerified screening as part of its account review, and investigates reported cases, then surface what the data shows. The decision to work with any given company still rests with the carrier or broker on the other side.

For prior quarters, you can read the Q1 2026 Freight Fraud Trends Report and the 2025 Freight Fraud Report.

Running identity checks and reviewing accounts is part of how Truckstop operates its load board, where carriers and brokers book freight. See how the Truckstop load board can support your business.

GET STARTED

Truckstop’s tools are built to support your carrier selection and monitoring process, not replace it. Truckstop does not make the call on who you work with, and using our tools does not shift that duty to Truckstop. See Truckstop’s Terms & Conditions for the full details.