Last week, local law enforcement received alerts about the latest identity theft scam, though it dates back as far as 2005.
John Gutierrez, Crawford County attorney, said he received an alert from the FBI about the scam.
“It’s basically a phone scam to get people’s birth dates, social security numbers and even credit cards,” Gutierrez said. “A lot of people don’t understand the jury selection system. The court would never call to get that kind of information.”
Pittsburg Police Lt. Henry Krantz said he didn’t know of any cases around the area. Known cases have occurred in Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Arizona, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington state. According to the alert, jury scams have been around for years, though they’ve seen a resurgence in recent months.
“We haven’t had anything like that around here, at least not yet,” Krantz said. “Of course, we still get the occasional Nigerian scam. I would think you might start seeing some though. I’m a bit surprised it’s taken this long to get there.”
The way the scam works is that someone calls a person’s phone claiming to be an officer of the court. The caller says that the person failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for their arrest. Often, the person will tell the caller that they received the notice.
What comes up next is that the caller says, to clear it up, they’ll need some information for “verification” purposes, often the person’s birth date, social security number and maybe even a credit card number. Sometimes, the alert said, the caller will “dangle a solution-a-fine, payable by credit card,” that will clear up the problem.
“The victim can be caught off guard, and that’s why they’re willing to give the information,” Krantz said.
But Krantz said that flew in the face of rule No. 1 when talking about possible identity theft.
“Don’t ever give information to anyone on the phone, period,” Krantz said. “Don’t do it on the Internet either. You’re just leaving yourself wide open for identity theft.
“We can’t protect you when you do that,” Krantz said. “One it gets out there, anybody can get a hold of it.”
Krantz said identity theft had become a hot topic in recent years.
“I’ve noticed now that credit cards tell you what they can do to help you as sort of a selling point,” Krantz said. “Then they say they can protect you, for a small fee. A lot of banks are the same way. It’s a big thing.”
Kevin Flaherty can be reached at kevin.flaherty@morningsun.net or by calling 231-2600 Ext. 134
PITTSBURG —
