Sorry folks.... ANOTHER scam alert from PSPD - Over the past few weeks, the Palm Springs Police Department has been receiving reports of the Jury Duty scam occurring in the City of Palm Springs. Several citizens have reported receiving phone calls from callers posing as Riverside County Sheriffs Department employees or Palm Springs Police Officers demanding payment for not responding to jury duty. This scam begins when someone, posing as a deputy or officer, contacts the victim via telephone. The deputy or officer provides his name and a badge number in hopes of legitimizing the call and advises the victims that they are delinquent from jury duty and will be arrested immediately. In order to avoid arrest, the deputy or officer advises the victim that they can pay a fine. They are instructed to go to a local store and obtain a $500 “green dot” money order. The victim is also provided with a local telephone number to call. Once the victim has obtained the money order, they are instructed to call the number and provide the numbers located on the back of the money order. The caller demands payment in lieu of the warrant via a prepaid debit card, wire transfer or a credit card number for payment. The people promoting the scam will provide names of local judges, courtroom numbers, addresses, etc. in an attempt to make the scam believable. During some of these calls, the phone number displayed on the Caller ID system returns to the City of Palm Springs or the Riverside County Superior Court. This scam is originating from outside of the United States and the callers frequently speak with a foreign accent. The public is reminded that this is not protocol of the court system. This is a scam. The public should not provide personal identifying information over the phone, do not provide any account or other personal information, hang up the phone, and never wire money to a person or company you don’t know. Once you wire money, you can’t get it back.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 00:00:18 +0000