The Jury Duty Phishing Scam Is Experiencing An Upsurge

lizditz — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:06:45 -0600

A phishing scam, using the telephone, is making the rounds in some quarters. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call.

Most of us take those summons for jury duty seriously, so are perhaps less likely to have our scam detectors turned to high gain in this scenario:

The caller claims to be a jury coordinator, and says that you have failed to show up for jury duty and an arrest warrant is about to be filed.

f 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 phishing 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.

Snopes also says this is real fraud, and has some additional helpful links

http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp

FBI Press Release, also with helpful links.

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The Jury Duty Phishing Scam Is Experiencing An Upsurge