Beware of phone scams demanding money for ‘missed jury duty’

When we get the call, it’s our legal responsibility to attend jury service. But sometimes that call won’t come from the courts – it will be a scammer.

07 May 2025
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4 min. read

Jury duty is one of the key civic duties you may be called upon to serve. But in your haste to fulfil this obligation, you may be targeted by malicious actors preying on your fear of arrest, penalties or other legal trouble. Indeed, jury duty cons have been a long-running scheme where fraudsters pretend to be the government.

As always, awareness is the best defense against these persistent attempts to steal your hard-earned money or personal information. So take a few minutes to arm yourself with some essential knowledge.

How to spot a jury duty scam

Jury duty/service scams are nothing new. In fact, United States Courts has been warning its citizens about them for over a decade. They’re also far from limited to North America. The UK’s Chartered Trading Standards Institute has in the past also warned about bogus texts inviting recipients to jury service, or risk facing fines.

So what do they typically involve?

Broadly speaking, victims will receive a phone call, text or email from a scammer impersonating a law enforcement officer or court official. They will claim the victim hasn’t shown up for their allotted jury service and must pay a fine as a result. They may often also ask for personal information, which will be sold on the dark web and/or used to commit follow-on identity fraud.

Look out for the following tell-tale signs of a jury duty scam:

• Threatening language: A classic social engineering technique is to create a sense of anxiety in the victim, so that they become more pliable. In this case, the scammers might claim that police will show up and arrest you if you don’t pay up quickly. They could also use legalese to add weight to their fabricated story and persona. Don’t believe what they say.
• Phishing tactics: Email scams of this sort use the same kind of tactics, creating a sense of urgency in the recipient in order to rush them into making a rash decision. Emails will most likely contain logos and other branding to appear legitimate. They may also look to spoof the sender domain to make it appear as if sent from a legitimate authority. Hover your cursor over it and it may reveal a completely different, random email address. Unless they’ve been written by AI tools, phishing emails may also contain clear grammar and spelling mistakes.
• Other tell-tale signs are clickable links, which may take you to spoofed phishing sites where you’re prompted to enter sensitive personal and financial information. These emails are also unlikely to be addressed to you personally. A generic greeting is a clear sign it’s a scam.
• Expect similar language in phishing texts (smishing), with clickable links and urgent demands to pay a fine or risk jail time.
• Payment options: No court, police department or government agency will ask for payment over the phone for ‘missed’ jury service. Yet scammers will do so, often requesting that funds be transferred by crypto, gift cards, wire transfer or an instant payment app like Zelle, Venmo or Cash App. That’s because it’s harder to trace these payments and even harder for you to get that money back once it’s been sent.
• Requests for information: Scammers may ask for sensitive personal information like Social Security details, as well as demanding you send them funds. That should be a red flag as it’s not something the authorities would do over the phone or via email/text.

How to stay safe from jury duty scams

Staying safe from these scams is all about awareness. So look out for the signs above that should ring alarm bells. Also be aware that failing to turn up for jury service will never be grounds for arrest. In the US at least, summonses are sent via USPS mail, as will notices informing you if you’ve missed your date. Fines will only be issued if you repeatedly ignore these notices and fail to contact the court.

Follow these additional steps to keep the scammers at bay:

• Never click through on an unsolicited email or text, even if it appears genuine. Always contact the authority in question independently (rather than replying to the email/text)
• Never divulge sensitive persona and financial information online or over the phone
• Remember that scammers can spoof their Caller ID to appear legitimate
• Never pay alleged fines by gift cards, crypto or money transfers
• If threatened while on the phone, stay calm, ask where the person is calling from, hang up and then call that office to check its legitimacy
• Keep up to date with the latest scam tactics from the FTC and other government sites
• Use anti-malware on all devices and computers to help filter out phishing messages and emails

What to do if you’ve been scammed

If you realize you’ve been scammed, don’t panic. Work step by step through the following:

• If you’re on a call, hang up immediately
• Make a note of as much information as possible, including the ‘name’ and/or badge number of the scammer, what they said and where they called/emailed from, and payment details
• Report the incident to the police and FTC. While they may not be able to help you recover any stolen money, it may help others
• Call your bank and freeze your credit/debit cards
• Monitor your bank account for any unusual activity
• Freeze your credit with the three big credit agencies, so scammers can take out credit lines in your name

It can be a daunting task when threatened with jail time and steep fines. But stand your ground, stay calm, and don’t let the scammers win.

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