Jury Duty Scam Targets Elderly
Recently, the elderly of Warren have been targeted for a scam related to jury duty.
A caller pretending to be a police officer demanded money from senior citizens for missing jury duty. The consequence for ignoring the request and not paying the fine would be an arrest. The Macomb county clerk heard from three residents last month complaining about such calls.
Macomb County Clerk Carmella Sabaugh cautions that such calls would never come from that office nor would payments ever be requested over the phone. Jury duty is an important part of the democratic process and treated as such.
The scam continues to be investigated by local law enforcement and prosecutors. However, the scam goes back to 2005 and popped up as recently as the previous April. In the last incarnation of the swindle, callers posed as employees of the warrant division of the Macomb County Sheriff’s office. The targeted person was told that he or she missed jury duty and consequently an arrest warrant was issued. Therefore, the victim was told a fee must be paid using a prepaid credit card to cancel the warrant.
With the recent events in Warren, an older woman named Bonnie Carter received a call from someone who presented himself as being from the local police department’s warrants division. He informed Carter that the cops would be over to arrest her if she did not make a $75 payment for missing jury duty.
Carter was really upset. However, she ignored the threat and hung up the telephone. The Macomb County Sheriff, Anthony Wickersham, stated the call was fake. He reiterated that his office doesn’t call folks up and ask them for money.
One local assistant prosecutor, Suzanne Faunce, seemed surprised that such a low amount of money is being requested during these scams. However, she expressed that one possibility may be to increase the chances of success to get the credit card numbers to commit additional fraud with the cards.
In these cases, if a resident receives a call like this over the phone, officials are recommending hanging up on the callers and then turning the telephone number over to police for investigation. Residents should not hand over their financial information to individuals claiming to be law enforcement either. As residents become more aware of the existence of these scams, exposure to these risks can be reduced and eliminated.