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Jury Duty Scam
Sadly, yesterday I fell for a scam. I want to share my story with you so that you don’t fall for it as well. I got a call from the sherrif’s office yesterday when I was driving home from work. They asked why I didn’t show up for my federal jury service. I said that I had no idea what they were talking about, maybe they had the wrong person. They checked my name and address (which they had) and they were accurate.
I asked how they notified me of my service and they said they sent a mailing that required ID and signature that I should’ve received April 14 or April 15. I know that I didn’t receive, show my ID or sign for anything on those dates; it was recent so I would’ve remembered. They said that maybe somebody signed for me. I said that I know if my husband signed for something for me, he definitely would’ve told me.
They described the case that I was supposed to show up for but said that I couldn’t speak to ANYONE about it because it was a federal gag order. They said that the case was a high profile murder case, and that the murderer had already engaged in witness tampering and evidence tampering. Thus I needed to keep quiet to protect myself. I couldn’t even tell my husband.
They also said that since I didn’t show up there was a warrant for my arrest. They emailed me the warrant from a DOJ email, and I had also been transferred between two people at this point. They said that I owed $35k but could pay $3500. I was like no way, that’s too much money and they allowed me to pay what I could afford to dismiss the warrant which was $500.They said that I could pay on paypal and were in constant communication with the courts and the bail people. They said once the warrant was dismissed, I could come down to them and have a handwriting analysis done to show that my signature didn’t match the one on the signed letter.
During this time, they did a lot of things that seemed legit: telling me I had to be quiet about the case bc they don’t want to me to get hurt, using words like “premises” to sound like a real officer, they offered to help me file a grievance against the postal service so that I could sue them because of the signature mishap, they allowed me to give less than needed, they kept constant phone and email contact (legit looking docs they emailed), they were very patient. They also offered that someone intervened with my summons because it could be used to steal my $ in a scam. I said how would they get that kinda info from a summons? They also often reminded me that I had to be hands free when I was driving, must wear my seatbelt and must drive the speed limit. They also said they could lower my charge (because I’m a teacher) and when I mentioned my cat they said they love cats too!
So I paid the $500 and did it wrong then they said that I had to pay $500 for both charges (the charges were Failure to Appear and Contempt of Court). So I had to pay another $1k because the payment has to be sent altogether. The dude was actually annoyed at me that I didn’t understand which I’m SURE is a tactic. Luckily my bank would not let me send any more money. They did however get me to use debit card to withdraw cash and I sent another $800 through gift cards. I’ll never see that money back. I’ve put a stop payment on my paypal charges so hopefully that doesn’t go through.
I was supposed to go there that night to meet my husband at the courthouse to do the handwriting analysis. While I didn’t tell him anything, I wanted him to be there for moral support. So he left work early, parked near the courthouse and waited in his car for 3 hours while I’m driving around Baltimore paying scammers. They said if i showed up without paying the money they would have to arrest me and put me into custody. Or I could just turn myself in.
Sadly, I figured out what had happened later that night. There’s lots of posts (though none from Baltimore yet) which describe the same scam and they even were emailed the same paperwork. Here’s some red flags I missed: The fact that I actually received nothing in the mail, the email addresses looked ok but at closer glance they didn’t seem legit, they wouldn’t get off the phone, they insisted on using 3rd party payment, they were persistent in getting the money, they wouldn’t let me tell anybody, they were highly agreeable, etc. etc.
It was all a SCAM and I sure hope this doesn’t happen to you.
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