SCAM Jury Duty Scam

Back 13 January 2017

Criminals have found yet another legitimate source to commit identity theft.

  They are utilizing the very same system which they will ultimately venture through when they are caught at their illegal activity.

  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 scam has surfaced. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen, reports CBS News.

 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.

The caller asks you to verify your name and social security number. Some have ask that you provide them with credit card numbers as additional verification. 

  This scam has been occurring through out the country.

  Federal, State, County and Local courts will not contact citizens and request that you verify or provide personal information. 

  Good practices to adhere to is never provide any personal information to someone who calls you. Never provide them with information they should already have, credit card, social security numbers, date of birth, any account/loan numbers or any other identifiers.

This (scam) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try and bully people into giving information by pretending they're with the court system.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their websites, warning consumers about the fraud.