Jury Duty Scam! Beware!

[DawnCt1]

One of my friends sent me this mass mailing from her job today. She rarely ever sends me any of these types of emails, so when she does, I read them

DO NOT DELETE WITHOUT READING !
Pass this on to your grown children.

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.

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.

Check it out here: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm
And here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp
It's true

 

[Missy1961]

I heard about this when I was doing jury duty last year.

 

[Sleepy]

This is just another one of those situations where people should be very careful when they get an "official" call. Anyone from a business that calls you ALREADY knows your personal information. The FBI knows who you are. The IRS knows who you are. They should NEVER have to ask you what your personal info is and if they do, tell them so and ask them to give it to you first. Then, when it is wrong or they don't know, hang up. Don't listen to excuses, etc. Just hang up.

My mother used to get a laugh out of the local newspaper delivery office. They always called (even to my own house) to ask if we were receiving the paper. Our answer was......"You are employed by the newspaper in the delivery department. Don't you have a computer in front of you telling you whether or not I have the paper delivered to my house? When you have your answer, call me back. Until then, don't bother me."

 

[kelleigh1]

The rules to always, always adhere to (and to make sure your elderly/aging parents and your kids adhere to):

don't ever give out any personal information over the phone unless you initiate the call.

 

[Sleepy]

The rules to always, always adhere to (and to make sure your elderly/aging parents and your kids adhere to):

don't ever give out any personal information over the phone unless you initiate the call.

And to add to that, don't initiate a call when the number dialed is from an e-mail, letter, etc. Look up the REAL number in the phone book and then call. Scammers prey on people thinking an official looking document, etc that contains address, phone number, etc on letterhead, must be for real. So, unsuspecting person calls that number and of course, scammer is going to answer in an official tone, "FBI" or something like that.

My husband is not allowed to talk on the phone when it comes to stuff like that. He falls for that sort of stuff hook, line, and sinker. We have been bitten bad. I wanted to bite him as well.

 

[Kim&Chris]

And to add to that, don't initiate a call when the number dialed is from an e-mail, letter, etc. Look up the REAL number in the phone book and then call. Scammers prey on people thinking an official looking document, etc that contains address, phone number, etc on letterhead, must be for real. So, unsuspecting person calls that number and of course, scammer is going to answer in an official tone, "FBI" or something like that.

My husband is not allowed to talk on the phone when it comes to stuff like that. He falls for that sort of stuff hook, line, and sinker. We have been bitten bad. I wanted to bite him as well.

Excellent point! I think it was these very boards where I saw that someone received an official-looking email from Citibank (?) with a phone number to call. The phone number in the email was an 800 number, so most would think it was 'official', but when the poster went to Citibank's site, the actual phone number was one or two digits different from the one in the email. These scammers are very good at what they do

 

[kelleigh1]

I got an email from Citibank a few weeks ago that looked very official. Info about changes to my account or some such thing. Now, I do have a Citibank loan, but I don't do anything online for that one. They wouldn't have my email address, so I knew it was a scam. But it definitely looked real and can see how someone could have been easily fooled.

 

[Sleepy]

Excellent point! I think it was these very boards where I saw that someone received an official-looking email from Citibank (?) with a phone number to call. The phone number in the email was an 800 number, so most would think it was 'official', but when the poster went to Citibank's site, the actual phone number was one or two digits different from the one in the email. These scammers are very good at what they do

Makes it bad that anyone can get an 800 number. Those people they are targeting are unaware of that fact. Pretty smart for a scammer to request one that is just a few digits off from the official number. Too bad these people can't use that same intelligence to get a real job......like cracking scammers or something. Guess it just doesn't pay as much and takes more effort.