Jury Duty Scam Alive & Well in Victoria

We hear about all kinds of scams these days as unscrupulous people attempt to con you out of your money. Here's a new one that the Better Business Bureau has brought to our attention involving jury duty. Here's what the official press release had to say.

Jury duty is an important and necessary civic responsibility that should be taken seriously by all of us. Unfortunately, Better Business Bureau serving Central, Coastal, Southwest Texas and the Permian Basin found scammers may use it to compromise your personal information and steal your money.

The jury duty scam begins when someone, posing as a court official, contacts someone by phone. The scammers will often provide names of federal judges, courtroom numbers and addresses in an attempt to make the scam believable. In the calls, they accuse people of skipping jury duty and say that you must immediately pay a fine or face arrest. In order to avoid arrest, the person is then instructed to pay a fine with a prepaid debit card or via a wire transfer.

In other cases, the scammer asks for the victim's confidential information for "verification" purposes. They ask for the victim's Social Security number, birthdate, and sometimes even credit card numbers or other private information. Facing the threat of arrest, victims are caught off guard and may be quick to part with some information to defuse the situation.

Federal courts do not require anyone to provide any sensitive information in a phone call or email, according to UScourts.gov. Most contact between a federal court and a prospective juror will be through the U.S. mail, and any phone contact by real court officials will not include requests for Social Security numbers, credit card numbers or any other sensitive information.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), if someone claims to be a government employee and asks you to send money or ask for your personal information, don’t do it. Legitimate government agencies will only contact you by mail.

BBB offer this advice if you receive a scam call regarding jury duty:

• Protect your personal information. Don’t provide any account or other personal information. Hang up the phone. BBB recommends reporting it to Scam Tracker to help warn others of this scam.

• Protect your money. Never wire transfer money or purchase a prepaid debit card without verifying who is on the other line. These payment forms are the most commonly used because they cannot be traced.

• When in doubt, hang up. If you feel you may have missed jury duty, call your area County Clerk's Office to verify if you have been summoned.

Courtesy bbb.org.