Please read the attached link for further information. In summary, the caller claims to be a jury DUTY 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 your identity was just stolen. The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states. 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/news/stories/2006/june/jury_scam060206 How to Avoid Falling Victim to 'Jury Duty' Scams: Court workers will not telephone to say you've missed jury duty or that they are assembling juries and need to pre-screen those who might be selected to serve on them, so dismiss as fraudulent phones call of this nature. About the only time you would hear by telephone (rather than by mail) about anything having to do with jury service would be after you have mailed back your completed questionnaire, and even then only rarely. Do not give out bank account, social security, or credit card numbers over the phone if you didn't initiate the call, whether it be to someone trying to sell you something or to someone who claims to be from a bank or government department. If such callers insist upon "verifying" such information with you, have them read the data to you from their notes, with you saying yea or nay to it rather than the other way around. Examine your credit card and bank account statements every month, keeping an eye peeled for unauthorized charges. Immediately challenge items you did not approve. This information is being shared in an effort to help protect our employees and their information. For warned is for armed...
Never ceases to amaze me how many people are scammed to giving personal, confidential information when called. Had a credit card company, many years ago, call me and try to say that they were from the fraud dept and they were calling because of suspicious charges. Asked me to verify my identity with my social and DOB. I replied with, "give me your phone number and extension and I will call back in 10 min". The response was "we cannot give out our phone number" I hung up and called the CC company directly, gave them the phone number the idiot called from and that was the end. The wife got a call a month or 2 ago claiming that they were from a "paycheck advance" place and that she had not repaid a loan and that a warrant was issued for her arrest. We don't use these places, at all. The guy on the phone asked her for her address so they could send the police to pick her up. Her response was "if I took a loan from you, you already have that information, see ya in court!" and hung up. In hindsight she said she should have said "201 Poplar, Memphis, TN" - this is the MPD jail/courthouse
