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Jury Rigged
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A little coercion can coax personal information from the most recalcitrant among us.
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Most of us take the summons for jury duty seriously. Some people skip out on their civic duty and that has given rise to a new and ominous kind of scam. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen.
In this con, someone calls pretending to be a court official who
threateningly says a warrant has been issued for your arrest because you
didn't show up for jury duty. 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 they can verify the information and cancel the arrest
warrant. Sometimes they even ask for credit card numbers. Give out any
of this information and your identity has just been stolen.
The
scam has been reported so far in 11 states. This scam is particularly
insidious because the callers use intimidation 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.
There are a few red flags here.
- The court system normally contacts people by mail, not by phone.
- It is highly unlikely that any Government official will call you.
- If you call to speak to a Government or Court official they will provide information but they would not make threats.
- A credit card number is not a valid form of identification.
In this situation the caller is catching their victim off guard and faced with a potentially bad situation. It would be easy to let your guard down in this situation.
Some things never change: If you are called and asked to provide personal information, do NOT do it. It does not matter if it is the court system or your bank. Do NOT do it. No. Never.
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