I suspect just requiring people seeking credit to just have to come personally to a bank with a photo-ID, a pay-stub and have to confirm they have access to the

I suspect just requiring people seeking credit to just have to come personally to a bank with a photo-ID, a pay-stub and have to confirm they have access to the postal address they have on their ID would solve it. This wouldn't by any means be foolproof (after all, half the highschool students in the US manage to get passable fake IDs), but the fact that it would increase the effort to open lines of credit, slow down the rate at which you could open new lines and increase the risk of getting arrested when you tried would, I think, shift the risk and reward balance on most scams to the extent that it wouldn't be worth it to the scammers anymore