Scam Awareness: Fake Jury Duty Calls

A common element of identity theft is the con artist usually has some piece of information to help gain your confidence and reveal more details. The Jury Duty Scam is such as example. Here’s how it goes down…

Sounds potentially legitimate and intimidating

The criminal calls your home pretending to be a court official. The criminal informs you in a threatening manner that there is a warrant for your arrest because you failed to show for jury duty.

Falsely gaining your confidence

The caller then claims to be a jury coordinator and attempts to gain your confidence by assisting you with the matter. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the criminal asks for your social security number and date of birth in order to verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant.

Your best defense

• Never, ever give your personal information over the phone to someone you don’t know who called you.
• Get the callers full name, title and phone number. Then lookup and call the municipal office switchboard to verify if the caller was legitmate. Do the phone numbers match? Can the switchboard operator verify if the caller represents the government office?
• Trust your instinct. If it seems vaguely suspicious, or you have any doubt, please be strong and don’t give in to threats and pressure.

Be vigilant. Be strong. Plus, educate your spouse, kids and elder parents to be alert for such scams.

-BD