Please Beware of Jury Duty Scams
Please be aware of Jury Duty scams that have resurfaced. If you receive a telephone call from someone identifying himself/herself as a law enforcement officer and claim that there is a warrant out for your arrest because you did appear in court for jury duty, please terminate the phone call. The is because it is a scammer calling you, with the intention of tricking you into sending money in order to settle a jury duty issue that doesn't exist.
The court or police will never call you over the telephone, contact you via email or text message about a missed jury date or an outstanding warrant, and ask you to make a payment over the telephone, in an email or text message in order to settle the issue.
How the Jury Duty Scam Works?
Once the scammers have called their potential victims, they will attempt to intimidate them into cooperating, by threating arrest if they do not send or obtain an electronic MoneyPak order, GreenDot or other pre-paid debit cards, and send the serial or card number to them. Unlike a credit card, the payments made through pre-paid debit cards are hard or virtually impossible to trace. This is why it is one of the preferred methods used by scammers or cyber-criminals.
The scammers may also attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information from the victims, such as online account usernames and passwords, credit card and financial information, by pretending to be trustworthy persons.
Another important thing to remember is, the Jury Duty scams can also be sent via text and email messages. And, do not be surprised if the scams also start showing up on social networking websites.
There are similar scams to the Jury Duty scams, which scam artists use to prey on your victims’ fears, by claiming that they or their loved ones are in sort of legal trouble.
So, if you are a victim or have received one of these Jury Duty or other similar calls, and is concerned about the call, please contact your local police department or authority.
Related alerts:
- Notice to Appear in Court - Virus Email Message
- Fake Internal Revenue Service-IRS Phone Call and Green Dot Card Scams
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