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Jury Duty Scam Can Cost You Your Identity

We received this from a friend who had pulled it from the FBI Website.
TELEPHONE FRAUD INVOLVING JURY DUTY

Washington, D.C. – The FBI today is providing a warning to the public against an ongoing scheme involving jury service. The public needs to be aware that individuals identifying themselves as U.S. court employees have been telephonically contacting citizens and advising them that they have been selected for jury duty. These individuals ask to verify names and Social Security numbers, then ask for credit card numbers. If the request is refused, citizens are then threatened with fines.

The judicial system does not contact people telephonically and ask for personal information such as your Social Security number, date of birth or credit card numbers. If you receive one of these phone calls, do not provide any personal or confidential information to these individuals. This is an attempt to steal or to use your identity by obtaining your name, Social Security number and potentially to apply for credit or credit cards or other loans in your name. It is an attempt to defraud you.

If you have already been contacted and have already given out your personal information, please monitor your account statements and credit reports, and contact your local FBI office. Local FBI field office telephone numbers can be found in the front of your local telephone directory or on www.fbi.gov. For further information, please review the warnings posted on the U.S. Courts website at www.uscourts.gov, “Newsroom” news article “WARNING: Bogus Phone Calls on Jury Service May lead to Fraud,” August 19, 2005.

This posting is from an excellence source, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Corra believes it’s fair to say few would have their proverbial thumbs on the pulse of identity theft like the FBI. As the article reports, it is simply a matter of someone seizing your social security number and date of birth, and they are off and running.

If you are a victim of identity theft you can spend many months, maybe years cleaning up the mess someone else made with your finances and credit. It is humiliating and debilitating, and often very expensive.

Corra recommends you run your social security trace every so often to see if you have a new partner using your social security number. Often it may be an undocumented worker merely using your number to pose as a legally eligible worker. And then sometimes it is someone who has stolen or planning to steal your identity.

In addition to the Social Security Trace, we recommend your run your Credit Card Report. You can also run a comprehensive background check on yourself to see if someone else is associated with your business.

Remember, your identity is your name, words and reputation. Don’t let someone else steal it away.


By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.