Caveman Circus

I came so close to getting scammed today – even withdrew money at the bank! This “officer” called and said I missed a federal court jury summons. He said I had to come down to the sheriff’s office. I told him I was sure I hadn’t received a summons and asked when it was sent. He said he had no further information and needed to transfer me to a supervisor. So I end up on the phone with his “sergeant,” who was extremely convincing. All I needed to do was get down to their office and sort it out, but I had to come right then because they’d issued a warrant for my arrest.

He kept me on the phone by telling me that he’d rescinded the warrant but it may still show as active in the system. He wanted me on the phone in case I got pulled over. Once I was in the car (agitated and distracted), he told me I needed bring bail. He said it was $3500 but they could reduce it by third. So in a minor/major panic I headed to the bank. On the way there, he’s telling me about what I’ll need to do once I get there and he’s bringing up my personal information (past addresses, etc.). He says twice that he knows I’m a law abiding citizen and that he’s happy to help me keep my record clean. As I drive, I start to wonder how the sheriff’s office could possibly have enough staff to spend this much time with everyone who misses a jury summons…

Here’s where his plan starts to fall apart Once I have the money in hand, he tells me that they’ll be forced to arrest if I show up without having prepaid the bail. He directs me to a Coinstar kiosk and tells me that I’ll have to pay it there. I’m embarrassed to say that I was in such a daze that I actually drove all the way there.

Finally, 30 minutes in, I came to my senses. Before I got out of the car I told him I was going to do some research to verify whether this is legit. At this point he sent me a copy of my “warrant.” While it didn’t exactly look real, it had all my personal information. A quick search yielded multiple references to similar scams. At that point I told him I was going to show up at the Sheriff’s office and he could just arrest me there. He threw a few additional threats at me and then gave up.

Here’s the thing – he had ALL my personal information. He was citing addresses from 20 years ago, knew my citation record, everything. And he’d spoofed the number for the US District Court. Very thoroughly done. Can’t believe how close I came to losing $1000.