PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia court officials are warning the public about a new way scammers are trying to squeeze money out of people — through jury duty.
It starts with a call from someone pretending to be a sheriff, who tells victims that they missed jury duty — when, in fact, they haven’t. Then, the person on the phone threatens them with charges, Philadelphia Jury Commissioner Patrick Martin said.
“And they are basically told that if they go that route, they will come out and arrest them at their home, bring them in for fingerprinting and processing, and that they should be out of jail that night, but not necessarily so,” he said.
In lieu of that bogus jail time, scammers will then offer the victims the option to pay their way out of the situation.
“The other option is by making it a civil matter, if they agree to pay a fine, they would be taken care of that way and would go away after that,” Martin explained. “Most people who buy into this, that’s the route they go. And they are put on hold for a moment and a different person gets on, claiming to be the payment office, and they tell them that they are processing them through Venmo.”
Martin stressed that the courts will never call you, especially to threaten payment or arrest. If you do miss jury duty, the courts will send a notice in the mail and may set a court hearing, during which “you would sit in front of a judge and at that time a fine would be imposed.”
Similar scams have been reported in Florida and Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Anyone who has received one of these scam calls is asked to contact their local police department, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Bureau of Consumer Protection at 800-441-2555, or the Federal Trade Commission online.