A TikToker warned people about a recent scam gaining traction that is convincing people about fake consequences for missing jury duty when they never received a notice.
A woman who goes by the handle @loveyouxoxoxoxo on TikTok started things off by explaining she was not an active TikToker and that this important PSA will likely be a one-and-done situation.
Despite her limited engagement on the platform, her video resonated with viewers, and she received over a million views.
"I want to share this story because I don't want anyone else to go through this," she said.
While coming home from an errand, the TikToker said she answered a phone call from a local number and assumed it was from an electrician she was expecting notifying her they were on their way.
When she answered, she initially believed the person on the other line was a police officer who might be soliciting Christmas money donations from the community given the time of year the incident occurred.
She continued:
"Come to find out, I had supposedly failed to show up for jury duty yesterday and there were three misdemeanor charges on my record, and all I had to do to clear it up was to get in my car and head to the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office."
The woman said she had to act "right away"—a common scare tactic—because once contact had been established, which in this case was her answering the phone, the "contact cannot be broken because there was a gag order."
She acknowledged her story sounded "far-fetched" but assured viewers she was "not gullible."
Before she got in her car, she said she "pushed back" and expressed having doubts over the legitimacy of the call, which prompted the caller to say, "I understand ma'am. Let me put you on the phone with my captain."
The other individual who got on the phone explained that all she needed to do was to "affirm" she didn't receive the summons and fill out a form to clear her charges.
"So much about this felt legitimate," she recalled after the caller asked if he needed to call the EMT for her when she started getting agitated and told her to keep them informed as to her minute-by-minute whereabouts.
Things took a turn when a third person posing as an sheriff's office clerk got on the phone and informed her that her predicament was more serious than originally thought. She was subsequently told that showing up at the Sheriff's office would result in jail time for three days.
To avoid this, she was advised to make a payment that would be handled by a bail bondsman, who would give her a receipt for the payment. She would then take the receipt to the Sheriff's office, where they would refund her the paid amount and clear her charges.
She gradually started becoming wise to their ways and questioned everything after expressing how this all felt "bogus" and that citizens aren't treated this way. "They covered every base, the scripts were so good," she recalled.
"The numbers were routed so it literally was a number coming from the Hamilton Sheriff's Office. Somehow it was routed, obviously it wasn't."
It finally boiled down to her either paying the requested $1,200 amount to clear her misdemeanor charges or spend three days in jail for allegedly skipping out on jury duty.
After being reminded she was under a gag order when she demanded to speak to her husband first, she was instructed to go to the "secure location that is confidential" where she would make the payment, which happened to be a machine inside a CVS.
Her interaction with a CVS employee prompted the caller to yell through the phone, reminding her that she was restricted from communicating with anyone due to the gag order, which made the woman grow increasingly anxious and frustrated.
Once she saw the machine and saw an option to send payments through Bitcoin, it solidified for her that she was being conned.
She took matters into her own hands by aborting the forced mission and drove straight to the nearest police station while ignoring the caller's persistent demands. She kept him on the line after she was warned that avoiding payment could force authorities to show up at her door and throw her in jail.
Once she arrived at the station, she told the receptionist about her situation and then asked if there were any warrants out for her arrest, which there weren't.
At that point, the scammer hung up.
Those who claimed to know better shared their thoughts relating to her story.
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Others appreciated her for sharing her alarming experience.
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) touched on this particular scam on their website.
With the exception of the scammer typically reaching out to victims through email, everything else about the TikToker's story was straight from the scammer's playbook.
The con starts with an individual claiming to be the police when they're not. Victims are told they missed jury duty even though they never got a jury notice, and they are threatened to be thrown in jail unless they pay a fine.
Scammers could also ask for your social security number or other personal information so they could steal your identity.
The FTC suggests people look for the following to know if they're being scammed.
"Courts never ask for immediate payment over the phone. In fact, no government agency will do that."
"Only scammers insist that you can only pay with gift cards, a payment app, cryptocurrency, or a wire transfer service like Western Union or MoneyGram because it’s very hard to get your money back if you pay in these ways."
"Courts never ask for sensitive personal information over the phone, like your Social Security number or date of birth. Only scammers do."
The FTC encourages people to hang up on these con artists or ignore emails and confirm with the court by calling a local number they know is real to confirm the authenticity of such notifications.
The independent government agency did note that intentionally missing jury duty can have serious consequences. It could result in fines, going to court, or even getting arrested.
This is why scammers have started taking advantage of the urgency related to our civic duty to prey on victims' fears.
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