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Jury Scam Alive And Well in Sarasota County

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 13, 2007

SARASOTA — A telephone scam that targets residents of Sarasota County is playing on the fear of arrest, authorities said.

A warning issued Thursday by the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office said that scammers are calling potential victims and identifying themselves as jury coordinators. They say they are informing the person on the line that they had missed a court hearing in which they had been summoned as a juror.

When the victims say that they never got a summons, the bogus jury coordinator asks for their Social Security numbers and dates of birth. That information is needed, they say, to take care of the arrest warrants that had been issued on charges of failure to appear for jury duty.

Sheriff's deputies say the scam has been reported in 11 states, and uses intimidation to convince the victims to reveal that personal information

For information about the scam, log on to the FBI Web site at www.fbi.gov.

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