[Mb-hair] jury duty and identity theft

[Barbara Siomos]

Thank you for this IHHS.

peace,
barbara


-----Original Message-----
From: IHHS at aol.com
Sent: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 06:55:03 -0800
To: IHHS at aol.com
Subject: [Mb-hair] jury duty and identity theft

 
snopes verifies this
 
Subject: Fraud involving jury service

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 news. 

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 and bully people into giving information by  pretending they're 
with the court system. 

The FBI and the federal court  system have issued nationwide alerts on their 
websites, warning consumers about  the fraud. 

This link takes you to a related notice on the FBI website.  
http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/fraudschemes.htm