A San Jose insurance agent has been charged with fraud after he submitted fake UC Berkeley college diplomas, fake report cards and fake letters from a local community college to get obtain lower rates for his customers – and thousands of dollars in commissions for himself.

According to prosecutors, Thomas Truong, 61, of San Jose, submitted 10 “Good Student" forms from Mission College in Santa Clara to Farmers Insurance to get discounts for his clients.

Investigators found that eight of the 10 had never attended the college and the other two did not attend during the dates listed on the form.

Truong, who was fired by Farmers after his crimes came to light, was arraigned today in San Jose. If convicted, he will likely be ordered to pay restitution in addition to a county jail sentence.

“The massive losses caused by insurance fraud statewide – large and small – trickle down to us all,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “We’re determined to enforce the law and even the playing field for businesses and customers.”

A California Department of Insurance Investigator who probed Truong’s work in 2022 discovered 10 fraudulently altered college diplomas, 14 fraudulent report cards from high schools all over the Bay Area, and 10 fraudulent school official statements, according to Rosen.

Truong was ultimately fired by Farmers in June 2022. When the former clients were shown the fraudulent documents, they each told the investigator that they had not provided those documents to Truong and had never seen them before.

Many of the former insurance clients also said that they did not know they were receiving the discounts that he had fraudulently obtained for them. One client’s parents told the insurance investigator that his son was not going to the high school on Truong’s form but was going to a South Bay private school that would have qualified him for the discount anyway.