A Jury Duty Scam

New month, new scam attempt. I’m certain this is also because I’ve put my number out there a lot recently, but today I got a call from someone claiming to be a sheriff from my actual county.

It started out with him announcing that he was from the [Actual] County Sheriff’s office, his name, and his badge number very quickly. He followed up by telling me that the reason for his call was that I missed a scheduled jury duty appearance today. The “sheriff” knew my name and county, but those are both public record for anyone willing to look.

Because life is hectic – and there were a few coincidences that lined up – my first thought was to believe him. Last year my wife was having major medical issues, and I got summoned. I filed a request to be excused, so they gave me a one-year postponement. I had recently rearranged my office as well, and a lot of paperwork is still a bit scattered. I thought I might have actually missed it - the timing lined up - but it wasn’t on my calendar. Maybe I’d just forgotten to add it, which I almost never do. Of course the caller didn’t know this.

He also said that because I am a “model citizen” with no criminal history or arrests that he was doing me a favor by calling instead of issuing an arrest warrant, making sure that I was keeping that status of a clean record. That was the first red flag. He was right that I don’t have a criminal record, but neither does most of the population - an easy thing to guess. So I asked him what I needed to do then since at the moment I was still thinking that I might have actually missed a jury summons, and being a good law-abiding citizen, I wanted to make it right. That’s what we’re supposed to do.

Now that I’d taken the bait, he had his opening to push further. He started out by telling me that I’d need to appear at the courthouse. I asked him the address. He gave me a local address just one town over - it could be correct. He then gave me an “FTA” or Failure To Appear number, and then another case number. They were both the same number of digits, same pattern, only the last four digits were different. Still professional on his part, and in character.

Then it started to get strange, so I challenged him.

He told me that I would need to report immediately to the courthouse and appear before the judge in order to clear the offense. BUT, I’d have to stay on the line with him until I got to the courthouse, and that if I set foot on any “government land” I’d be arrested immediately, so I should start gathering my belongings and get going now. Also, I’d have to stop by a kiosk on my way to post some collateral ahead of time.

Full stop. This is a scam.

The scammer kept to his script, though. I’m sure my earlier hindbrain panic that maybe I’d actually missed jury duty convinced him I was a good mark. When I told him this doesn’t sound right, he did what all scammers do when you question them, he got aggressive. He tried to scare me, saying I’d face jail time and a $10,000 fine - that this was my best option.

Calmly, I told him that didn’t seem right. I pointed out the fact that he called from a blocked number, that this seems excessive for a single missed jury appointment, that the kiosk was labeled “BTC” (he tried to tell me what it stood for, trying to mask that it’s Bitcoin that he was after), and that there is no way I’m paying any fine unless it’s ordered by a judge – in an actual courtroom. He started his threatening again, telling me that I’d missed a full week of jury duty (versus one day earlier), and that it’s basically like pre-emptive bail, and then, funnily enough, the call dropped.

After the call dropped, I verified my suspicions. The address he gave me was a residential address, and I found similar other scams online on various government websites. I knew this already, but jury duty especially handles things through the mail, not by phone.

To make it even weirder, he called me back about five minutes later. I told him simply, “I know this is a scam. Have a nice day.” and hung up. Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t get a call back again to double down on the threats.

He never asked me for any personally identifying information, which seems to deviate from what a lot of these scams try to do. By not asking for any of that, it does seem to give them credibility. He had just enough information about me to make it convincing, but as these scams always do, they fall apart at the end when they try to get you to open your wallet.

Scams keep getting more convincing, and with so much personal information online, they’re only getting harder to spot.

If you want a second set of eyes on something sketchy, or you’re not sure if a contact is legit, reach out. I’m happy to help another dev avoid wasting their time like I did.