Consumers warned about jury duty and imposter scams

Phone scam

If someone claiming to be a law enforcement official calls and asks you to pay up with a prepaid debit card, don’t fall for it. It’s likely a scam!

The Dallas County Sheriff’s Department and U.S. Marshals Service have teamed up to warn people about a nationwide trend of imposter scams.

During the calls, the scammers claim to be from the sheriff’s office, marshals’ office, a court officer or another law enforcement official. Sometimes the caller ID even shows the name of an official office and the caller will give a badge number.

The scammers accused their victims of failing to report for jury duty or other offenses and tell them they can avoid arrest by purchasing a prepaid debit card such as a Green Dot card.

"Legitimate court employees and other law enforcement officials will never call to solicit this type of personal or financial information from you.  The sheriff’s office won’t ask for a credit/debit or gift card number or bank routing numbers or ask for funds to be wired for any purpose,” said Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown. “If the caller is urging you to provide this type of information or any other personal or financial information, hang up and report the call to your local police authorities and the FTC. You can even report to both agencies anonymously.”

Victims are encouraged to report suspicious calls to the police and the Federal Trade Commission at ftccomplaintassistant.gov.

The FTC uses the reports to detect fraud patterns and shares data with law enforcement, the sheriff’s office said.