Jury duty phone scam has cost Montco residents $60K in the last 2 months

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office is sounding the alarm on a jury duty phone scam that has tricked county residents into turning over more than $60,000 in the last two months alone.

District Attorney Kevin Steele said the caller tells the victim they missed jury duty and they will be arrested if they don’t immediately come to the courthouse.

The scammer keeps the victim on the phone while en route to the courthouse, but then diverts them to a bitcoin kiosk. Once the money goes in those cryptocurrency kiosks, it’s unrecoverable.

“What everybody needs to know is that no sheriff deputy is going to be telling a person to put money into a bitcoin kiosk,” said Steele. “That should be a red alert that this is a scam.”

However, he noted that these are professional scammers who find personal details about a victim and intimidate them into following directions.

And unfortunately, the scam has worked. Since May 28, six people from across the county have lost a combined $60,380 in untraceable cryptocurrency kiosks.

“Once it’s in there, it’s gone, and we’re not able to get the money out,” Steele said. “We’re not able to trace it.”

Earlier this week, Steele said a man was on his way to a machine when his wife frantically called detectives. They were able to convince the man it was a scam before he lost his money.

Authorities have asked store owners with bitcoin kiosks to put a sign on the machines warning that law enforcement will never request payment in cryptocurrency.