There is a new identity theft scam preying on potential jurors that you should tell your friends and relatives about. As you may know, our judicial system, whether criminal (to decide whether a person is guilty or not guilty of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt) or civil (usually to decide monetary damages by a preponderance of the evidence for a civil harm or injury, such as damages resulting from a car accident), relies upon a sworn body of people convened in court to render an impartial verdict on a question or questions submitted to them by the court. This body of people or group, consisting of laypersons and not professional jurors, is called the jury.
Unfortunately, criminals have created a new scam or con, at the core of which is jury service. The con involves calling someone and advising there is a warrant out for that person’s arrest for not reporting as required for jury service. The person obviously protests and is scared, worried and caught off guard. The caller then explains that perhaps there is an error and it can be cleared up by providing the person’s full name and, for identification, their date of birth, Social Security number and one credit card number. This has been verified by the FBI.
This con is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us
take those summonses for jury duty very seriously, but enough people skip
out on their civic duty that this new kind of fraud has become prevalent.
The caller may claim to be a jury coordinator, city clerk or other official. If you
protest that you never received the summons for jury duty, the scammer
then asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or
she may verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out
any of this information to this unknown caller and your identity was just stolen.
The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including California, New York,
Illinois, Colorado, Arizona and more. This con is especially
insidious because the callers use intimidation over the phone to try to bully
people into giving information by pretending they are with the government or court
system.
The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide
alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about this fraud. You may check it
out here and also on snopes.com.
So please be on guard. Never give personal information to anyone unless you know for sure who they are and their legitimate need for the information. Should you receive such a call requesting any personal information from someone you do not know, HANG-UP! Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book and should you have any questions about this consumer fraud or any claim against anyone who has caused you any harm, including in any car, truck or motorcycle accident, please contact our Los Angeles personal injury lawyers for a FREE consultation at 818.222.3400 or 866 INJURY 2 or by email at info@Walchlaw.com.