TACOMA, Wash. (Metro) -- A Tacoma man faces charges after he allegedly tried to collect a $20,000 insurance claim for a dead cat that didn't exist.
The Washington Office of the Insurance Commissioner says 29-year-old Yevgeniy Samsonov filed the fraudulent claim in 2011, two years after a crash in which he was injured.
Commissioner Mike Kreidler says Yevgeniy sought a $20,000 payment after he claimed his cat was killed in the same crash, and sent the insurance company photos of what he said was the cat in question.
The commissioner says a claims representative at PEMCO Insurance ran a Google Images search and discovered identical photos of the cat appearing on various websites.
