JURY DUTY SCAM - This has been verified on Snopes.com (link listed
below) and 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 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. Sometimes they even ask for
credit card numbers. 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
in formation 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.
The simple answer to ALL scams is if you get a call and they ask for SSN,DOB, Credit Card #…IT’S A SCAM!!!, When you call somebody (i.e. IRS, electric company, your credit card and they ask for that info usually the last 4 of your SSN, it’s not a scam…period.
Someone calls you and you think it’s suspicious just ask them for the number to call back on. Whatever they give (if anything) write it down and give it to your local Police Department. Let them check it out. If they hang up try your 1471 (or whatever code gets your last call) and give that to the PD.
D*mn You, Spacemouse!!There goes my model railroading budget until I can find a new con to run!!
Tacked to a bulletin board near my phone is a fictitious i.e. non-existant SSN and a fictitious DOB (31 April 99 - 1899 or 1999, they can guess which one) - the SSN is obviously non-existant and if I am ever querried about it I am prepared to explain that that is a special controlled SSN issued by the National Intelligence Task Force for the purpose of monitoring former agent’s activities; any attempt to use that number will be immediately flagged by that agencies computer system and will result in very close monitoring, including, I might add, 24 hour surveillance of anyone using that number. I have never had to use it but I suspect that it would result in an immediate disconnect.
I also am wrapped up in this VA thing. I only have one thing to say; if you are going to steal my identity please have the decency to steal my bills along with it!!! And, of course, you can also have the “hits” on my credit record and then you can spend six months arguing with former landlords about who owes whom monies.
One way to stop the caller dead in his/her tracks is to quietly ask them if they are wearing any underwear. It puts a whole nuther tone on the converstation from that point on, and …usually… shortens it considerably.