Jury Duty Scam

I’m posting this partly because I’ve received 5 summons to appear on jury duty in the past 2 years - you’d think that there are more eligible jurors in the cycle. Luckily, I don’t have a land line so I’m unlikely to experience this jury scam that bullies me into giving SSN & other info over the phone. But, for those of you who do have home phones (or ever wished you weren’t plagued by jury duty), watch out for this…

The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo; your identity was just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois and Colorado. This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.

Check FBI warning here.
And on Snopes here.

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