What should people know about jury duty scams and scammers, and what can we do as a society to combat this?
Scams related to jury duty are becoming a growing concern. Scammers take advantage of the fact that many people are “wound up” about the concept of jury duty, and may be afraid of the consequences that may result from failing to show up to court when ordered to do so. It does not help that the consequences are very vague, and that in some cases they reference criminal penalties including jail time.
Scammers attempt to convince scam victims that they (the latter) did not show up for jury duty when ordered to do so. They may do this using phone calls, e-mails, or even in-person visits while impersonating a law enforcement agent or court official. There have even been reports of scams being conducted by inmates in prison which I have to say is absolutely mind-blowing.
In some cases, it is possible that the scam victim did actually ignore his/her jury summons, and is afraid that the government did catch up with him/her despite anecdotal evidence that such was unlikely to happen. It is also possible that the scammer manages to convince the victim that even if the summons was lost in the mail, that is not a valid excuse in the eyes of the court.
The goal of scams may be to obtain money from the victim (e.g., “Pay your fine by sending money to PO Box xxx, and we won't have to come and arrest you”), or to obtain information needed for identity theft (e.g., “Please confirm your social security number...”).
There are a number of steps that the government could take to reduce the frequency of scams. One very easy solution (which is sadly not widely supported by the American population) is to make the punishment for scamming such that more people will think twice about whether scamming is worth it. Scammers are not psychopathic homicidal maniacs for whom punishment is not a deterrent. They are intelligent, calculating individuals who want to earn easy money. They perform a simple “risk vs. reward” computation, and confidently proceed with their scam.
Another way to reduce the frequency of scams is to not use a threatening tone on jury duty summonses, and instead switch to model of encouragement and incentives. Presently, the overall tone of jury duty has the connotation of “us” (i.e., the government) vs. “you” (i.e., the unlucky random anonymous person who received a form letter by non-registered postal mail). If the entire tone was switched to one in which court districts treated prospective jurors as non-criminal human beings, and offered to help them and answer their questions, at least some people might respond to scammers by saying, “I know that this is a scam, and I am reporting you. The courthouse would never just call me up and demand money or my social security number, and threaten to arrest me and put me in jail. That is not how it works, and in any case, I am calling them to verify this matter.”
The government is in somewhat of a “catch-22” situation. It would be best if court districts could put out public service announcements telling people that they don't have to fear being arrested or fined, and should ignore (or ideally report) anyone who makes such references since they are obviously a scammer. If the government does this, though, it will no longer be able to include such threats on jury duty summonses. My personal opinion is that these threats serve no purpose and have no place on a summons. However, many people would argue that if such threats were removed, fewer people would show up for jury duty since some people show up only out of fear of the scary-sounding consequences for not doing so.
Scamming will always be present in American society, and the population will always be gullible. This is not going to change. The point of this section is to reiterate the point being made throughout this entire book: Jury duty should not be such a “big deal,” and should not be something that so many people are so fearful or apprehensive about.
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Scammers attempt to convince scam victims that they (the latter) did not show up for jury duty when ordered to do so. They may do this using phone calls, e-mails, or even in-person visits while impersonating a law enforcement agent or court official. There have even been reports of scams being conducted by inmates in prison which I have to say is absolutely mind-blowing.
In some cases, it is possible that the scam victim did actually ignore his/her jury summons, and is afraid that the government did catch up with him/her despite anecdotal evidence that such was unlikely to happen. It is also possible that the scammer manages to convince the victim that even if the summons was lost in the mail, that is not a valid excuse in the eyes of the court.
The goal of scams may be to obtain money from the victim (e.g., “Pay your fine by sending money to PO Box xxx, and we won't have to come and arrest you”), or to obtain information needed for identity theft (e.g., “Please confirm your social security number...”).
There are a number of steps that the government could take to reduce the frequency of scams. One very easy solution (which is sadly not widely supported by the American population) is to make the punishment for scamming such that more people will think twice about whether scamming is worth it. Scammers are not psychopathic homicidal maniacs for whom punishment is not a deterrent. They are intelligent, calculating individuals who want to earn easy money. They perform a simple “risk vs. reward” computation, and confidently proceed with their scam.
Another way to reduce the frequency of scams is to not use a threatening tone on jury duty summonses, and instead switch to model of encouragement and incentives. Presently, the overall tone of jury duty has the connotation of “us” (i.e., the government) vs. “you” (i.e., the unlucky random anonymous person who received a form letter by non-registered postal mail). If the entire tone was switched to one in which court districts treated prospective jurors as non-criminal human beings, and offered to help them and answer their questions, at least some people might respond to scammers by saying, “I know that this is a scam, and I am reporting you. The courthouse would never just call me up and demand money or my social security number, and threaten to arrest me and put me in jail. That is not how it works, and in any case, I am calling them to verify this matter.”
The government is in somewhat of a “catch-22” situation. It would be best if court districts could put out public service announcements telling people that they don't have to fear being arrested or fined, and should ignore (or ideally report) anyone who makes such references since they are obviously a scammer. If the government does this, though, it will no longer be able to include such threats on jury duty summonses. My personal opinion is that these threats serve no purpose and have no place on a summons. However, many people would argue that if such threats were removed, fewer people would show up for jury duty since some people show up only out of fear of the scary-sounding consequences for not doing so.
Scamming will always be present in American society, and the population will always be gullible. This is not going to change. The point of this section is to reiterate the point being made throughout this entire book: Jury duty should not be such a “big deal,” and should not be something that so many people are so fearful or apprehensive about.
Go to Next Topic
Go to Table to Contents