Jury Duty Scam
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Most of us take summonses for jury duty seriously. But enough people skip out on their civic duty that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.
The caller claims to be a jury DUTY 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, Colorado, Arizona, and more. 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. Check it out here:
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm
And here:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp
Posted in: Intown Living