Is Someone Claiming You've Missed Jury Duty? It Might Be a Scam

Real summonses for jury duty and notices that you’ve skipped it come in the mail. No court official will demand payment or personal information from you over the phone. And if you genuinely have missed jury duty, no fine will be imposed until you have a chance to appear in court to explain your failure to appear. 

“There are consequences to not showing up jury duty,” says Handberg, “but they’re not someone calling you up and saying you’re going to be arrested unless you pay money.”

Growing sophistication  

It can be hard to identify these calls as scams because scammers go to great lengths to seem legitimate. Victims have reported hearing what sounds like police chatter in the background when they are speaking to a law enforcement imposter.

And the criminals may know facts about you that may suggest that they are legitimate officials. 

“They know your name, they know where you live,” says Handberg. “Sometimes, they might even have more information than that. And it really convinces people that it is someone calling from law enforcement because they think, 'Well, only law enforcement would have this type of information’” Not so. “There’s a lot that’s available through public records. And I think it surprises people sometimes when they learn how much information is already out there.”

Ironically, people in prison have carried out some of the most widespread jury duty scams in recent years, using contraband cellphones and employing caller ID “spoofing” and other easily accessible tech tools that make it seem as if they’re calling from a local courthouse, police department or sheriff’s office.

Warning signs

• You receive a phone call or email claiming you’ve missed jury duty and must pay an immediate fine to avoid arrest.
• The person contacting you demands personal or financial information or payment by wire, gift card or reloadable debit card. Those forms of payment are hard or impossible to trace, so they are favored by criminals.
• The caller tries to keep you on the phone while you collect the money they’re requesting. (They don’t want you to hang up and stop to think or to tell someone who’d interfere in their scheme.)

How to protect yourself from jury duty scams

• Hang up if someone claiming to be a U.S. marshal or court official calls you out of the blue with a jury duty warning.
• Know how courts actually handle jury matters. Genuine communications about jury service come by mail, not phone or email, and court officials will not ask you for sensitive information.  
• Contact the relevant federal, state or local court to see if you have an actual jury duty problem. Search online for contact information and only call numbers you find on official websites.
• Don’t give out personal or financial information over the phone or by email to a purported court official.
• If you receive an email or voicemail about missed jury service, look up and call the official number for a court or law enforcement agency to see if it has attempted to contact you.
• Don’t assume a call is legitimate because caller ID says it comes from a court office or law enforcement agency. Scammers use spoofing technology to trick caller ID.

More resources

• Report suspected jury duty scams to the FBI at IC3.gov and to local law enforcement. Sometimes, people are embarrassed to come forward after they’ve been victimized, but it’s important to report these crimes. In the Sarasota case noted above, two people have been indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and others in their larger crime ring are likely to be indicted as well, according to Handberg.    
• Contact the U.S. district court for your area to find out if a communication about federal jury duty is legitimate.
• Call the court clerk’s office for your city or county for inquiries about jury service in that court.