Wrongful Credit Damage, Identity Theft and Debt Collection Abuse Blog

The latest scam being used by identity thieves is the jury service scam.  It works like this: during work hours, they will call you & claim you ignored your jury service subpoena and need to report to jury service.  You say, of course, that you did not get a jury service subpoena.  The thief then tells you he/she needs your personal information, including your social security number, to verify that the jury service subpoena was sent out.  Viola!  Your identity has just been stolen. The only good news is that you don’t have to report to jury duty.

If you get a call and are concerned, make your own contact to the county jury commissioner.  In Los Angeles, the general number for county services is (213) 974-1234.  The operators can direct you where to go.  If you live in another county, call the county main switchboard to find out who it is that you need to speak with.

In general, in this day and age, just say no when someone wants your personal information over the phone when you have not initiated the call.  If you are calling, say, your bank, and you dial the number, there’s very little chance of your identity getting stolen.  But when someone calls you, just say no, whatever the reason.  Take down their information and then place your own call to verify or confirm what they’re telling you.

Hope this helps.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Credit Damage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.