Jury Duty Scam

This is an excerpt from an email I received from my sister:

This has been verified on Snopes.com and by the FBI. It is spreading fast; so be prepared should you get this call.

Most of us take those summons 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.

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 he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo! Your identity just got stolen.

The scam has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado. This scam is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to 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 web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

Check it out here:
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm

Got it - tell 'em to come get me then

Actually, I get calls for the woman who USED to have my phone number about once a week for Jury Duty. They always call when I'm not home, never leave a number to call back, and they never have been pleasant about it yet..

Interesting.
I did see a constable come over to some apartments I was working security at a few years ago.
He was looking for a resident who had skipped out on jury duty.
I knew the resisdent was there after I had told them to turn down thier loud music only a few hours earlier.
The resident stayed quiet and did not answer the door.
The constable ended up leaving empty handed shortly there-after. :wave:
I never had a problem with that resident for loud music ever again.....
Lucky! :laughing:

What's even more interesting is that even when someone is caught for that and has to appear in court in Dallas,
some jury members for that hearing often don't even show up for it, and everything comes to a grinding halt right there.

It would appear that nobody is going to break down your door if for any reason you, or someone "thought" you didn't show up for jury duty. :candle:

I've been summoned several times, got out of it the first couple times on the phone, and once about 8 years ago was nearly selected for a case. I had made it to the final cut, but got the axe at the last moment by one of the attorneys.

The last time I was summoned a couple years ago, it really slipped my mind and I never responded or showed up. Had I gotten a call from these scammers I would have definietly given up my info and rolled over, being predispositioned as a jury duty fugitive.