Jury Duty Scam

Jury Duty是去法院(court)當法官的陪審團員(juror), 這是美國公民的義務之一, 收到了法院要你去當陪審團員的通知單, 一定要回(若有特別的理由, 例如自己不是公民等, 可申請延期或不參加)。 在去法院的前一天晚上, 可先打指定的電話了解自己是否需要去報到。竟然有人利用公民的義務偷取資料。

This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.

The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo; your identity was just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado. This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

Check it out here: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm
And here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp

還不知什麼是Jury? 看看電影Runaway Jury就了解Juror要做些什麼事了。

去Jury duty雖無法上班時, 但公司必須照付其的薪水, 因為這是屬公事。另外法院也會付點極少的費用, 州立法院會付的多些。參加過幾次的感想是, 在等待的過程中有些無聊, 必須自備圖書。自911後, 針線活已不能帶進去了。

有關系列: 小心身分被竊