Bogus Calls on Jury Duty Could Lead to Identity Theft
WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 — People in several states have fallen victim to con artists claiming to be employees of state and federal courts.
The scheme runs like this, according to the FBI: The victim will receive a call from a person pretending to be a court official. The person will be told that he or she has jury duty and then will be requested to give confidential information, such as Social Security number and credit card numbers. Victims refusing to comply will be threatened with fines.
“A person might receive a phone call from a federal employee, that’s for sure,” said Dick Carelli, a spokesman for the federal court system, but he added that no officer of a federal court would ask for sensitive information over the phone.
“They’d never ask for your bank account,” he said. “They’d never ask for your Social Security number.”
Carelli advises that if someone is asking you for sensitive information over the phone, no matter who they claim to be, ask for a number and call the person back. Or, if you are uncomfortable, “Simply hang up and give a call to your local FBI office or your local district court.”
The FBI has several guidelines on how to avoid telemarketing fraud. The bureau’s Web site suggests that you take your time when responding to phone calls, insist on getting information about who you’re dealing with, including name, mailing address, street address and phone number. Then verify the information before money or sensitive information changes hands.
You should also never give personal information to someone who is unknown to you, even if the person already has information about you. The complete list of guidelines is available at http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/fraudschemes.htm.
Carelli said that calls about the scheme from clerks in Ohio and Nebraska came on top of “similar complaints from half a dozen states” over the summer about people posing as state employees.
A spokesman in the Washington FBI office confirmed that complaints of the scheme also came in to the bureau’s New Haven, Conn., office and a “western state” that the spokesman refused to name.
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