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A New Identity Theft Scam Nearly No 1 Knows About

Boone, NC (PRWEB) August 24, 2005

Boone, NC (PRWEB) August 24, 2005 — Identity theft scammers, pretending to work for local courts, are calling possible victims with the news that they have failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant has been issued for their arrest. They then ask victims for personal confidential data, which includes social security numbers, birth dates, and credit card numbers for “verification” purposes. This is precisely the information scammers require to commit identity theft.

“It’s not at all surprising that the jury duty scam is so effective,” says Dr. Audri G. Lanford, Co-Editor of World wide web ScamBusters, the #1 publication on Net fraud. “Victims are caught off guard and are understandably upset at the concept of a warrant being issued for their arrest, so they are considerably less likely to be careful about protecting their confidential details and their identity,” says Dr. Lanford.

The jury duty scam is only about 3 weeks old and has already been reported in nine states: Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington state.

In reality, court workers do not call possible jurors and ask for their social security numbers, credit card numbers, and other personal details. Most courts use snail mail exclusively for jury matters.

It is straightforward to safeguard yourself from this scam: Never give your social security number, credit card numbers, or other personal info when you receive a phone call, no matter what the reason.

“The jury duty scam is a fantastic example of why becoming smart is not constantly enough to safeguard yourself from clever on-line and offline scammers,” says Dr. Lanford. “Whereas it is easy to prevent several scams by just employing frequent sense, it makes it a lot easier to safeguard yourself if you know about other scams in advance. Educating consumers about new scams like the jury duty scam is why we have been publishing Web ScamBusters for the past 10+ years as a public service.”

Visit http://www.scambusters.org/scambusters.html for a lot more information.

Click here for far more on the principles behind the jury duty scam and how it leads to identity theft.

About World wide web ScamBusters

Internet ScamBusters, the #1 publication on Internet fraud, shows you how to protect yourself from clever scammers — on the internet and offline. Established in November 1994, it is a public service by Audri and Jim Lanford that consists of a free weekly email newsletter. World wide web ScamBusters delivers a lively, entertaining and opinionated approach to avoiding the most popular scams, viruses, spyware, phishing scams, identity theft ploys, credit card fraud schemes, and urban legends making the rounds.

CONTACT Info:

Audri G. Lanford, Ph.D.

Internet ScamBusters

828-262-5885

http://www.scambusters.org

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