The United States District Court for the District of Nevada is asking citizens to beware of a new jury service scam designed to obtain peoples’ personal information.
The scam involves a misleading email message that may be mistaken for a jury summons, according to the district court.
Recipients of the fake email are instructed to fill out an attached form, which asks for a home address, telephone number and other personal identifiers, such as date of birth, social security numbers and driver’s license numbers. It also mentions a possible fine and imprisonment for failing to answer the summons.
The Nevada district court warns citizens the email is a scam intended to obtain information that could be used for criminal purposes, including fraud and identity theft.
Recipients of the email should not respond to it and are asked to contact the court, which will alert federal law enforcement agencies.
The scam is of particular concern to the federal courts because the sender is identified as “EJuror Program” on the email.
The name is also one used by many federal courts to allow jurors to respond to jury questionnaires and summons using a court website. However, closer inspection of the phony email reveals that non-governmental accounts are used to send the message to receive replies, according to the court. Federal courts using eJuror will never request personal identification information by email.