Jury Duty ID Theft Scam Spreads

A new form of identity theft is targeting one of the nation's most important obligations, jury duty.

The Early Show consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen

Koeppen explains that the scammers figure their targets are good citizens who are willing to give up some key personal information because they're needed in the courtroom.

One target of such a ploy, Bellevue, Colorado grandmother Diana Koenig, tells Koeppen she "was definitely duped, definitely, and it was so slick I didn't know it."

Koenig knew better than to give out personal information over the phone but, several weeks ago, got a call from a woman saying she was with the district court.

"When she told me she was a clerk from the courts, I trusted her," Koenig says.

The caller said Koenig and her husband were up for jury duty, and she needed their birthdates and Social Security numbers to send them a summons.

"I thought about it real quickly and decided, 'She must need this,' so I gave it to her," Koenig says.

But when the summons never came, Koenig called the district clerk and got the shocking truth: That call wasn't from the court, but from a scam artist looking to steal her identity.

"I thought I was gonna have a heart attack right then. I knew I was in trouble," Koenig says.

The jury duty scam has already been reported in 11 states, Koeppen says. Both the FBI and federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their Web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

"What these scamsters were thinking about," comments Connecticut's U.S. attorney, Kevin O'Connor, "was, 'Let's exploit people's faith in their government.' "

O'Connor says some identity thieves are even using scare tactics, telling people they've missed jury duty and there's a warrant out for their arrest: "They then say, 'There must be a mistake, we can clear this all up, but I'm gonna need some information from you.' "

Information such as your name, address, Social Security number and date of birth.

"Generally," O'Connor says, "that's enough for them to then go out, open up credit cards in your name, take out a line of credit in your name, you name it."

And, he adds, they "absolutely" can do lots of damage with that information.

Koeppen points out that victims may not realize the damage has been done until months, even years later.

O'Connor says that's why people need to know that if you're up for jury duty, you'll never be contacted by phone.

"If you're summoned for jury duty and you don't show up," he says, "we don't call you, we don't have your phone numbers. What we do is send you a certified letter or try to find a verifiable address that works."

Koenig didn't know that, and now she wishes she'd played a different hand when she got that bogus call.

"I could have said, 'I'm involved in something right now, give me a phone number, I'll call you back in 10 minutes,' and I would not be in this situation," she says.

Koeppen says that if you think you're a victim of this scam or if you get one of these phone calls, you should report it to your local FBI office or your state attorney general.

Dozens of people across the country have received these calls, Koeppen reports, and these are only the ones authorities know about. There may be plenty of other targets who haven't reported getting the call.

What's more, some of the scams involve means other than phone calls, such as mailings. You could get a fake jury duty questionnaire asking you for personal information.

Koeppen says that if someone calls you or you get something in the mail asking for personal information, be very careful before you give it out.