When Philadelphia personal injury firm Ostroff Injury Law received a message about an alleged dog bite victim looking to quickly settle claims against the dog’s seemingly wealthy owner, the firm was quick to determine that the whole thing was a hoax. The injury wasn’t real, the dog was fake, and, if either party existed at all, they certainly were not who they were claiming to be.

Part of the reason the firm realized the request was a hoax so quickly was because only a few weeks before the firm had received a similar inquiry involving a dog bite—only that case made it nearly to the point of disbursing more than $100,000 in settlement funds before the law firm found out it was dealing with a phony claim.