fbi warning

[wdspeedbump]

in case you haven't been warned about this:

This has been verified by the FBI (their link is

also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address

book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of

us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out

on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.

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. Give out any of this

information and bingo; your identity w as just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states,

including Oklahoma , Illinois , and Colorado . 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/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm

<http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm>

And here:

http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp

<http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp>

[DocDon]

Great post! I had forgotten about this one!

What gets me is this scam has been around since 2005 and has gotten surprisingly little press. The Iowa AG just got around to warning citizens in October.

I also fail to see reports on any arrests being made - even though it is believed these rings are operating right here in the States. They've only been collecting all our phone records since 2001. Shouldn't be that hard to find the people on the other end.

[mariner]

Yep,

They just reported on it locally in FL also.