This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.

The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo; your identity was just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma , Illinois , and Colorado . This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

Check it out here: Federal Bureau of Investigation - Press Room - Headline Archives

And here: snopes.com: Jury Duty Scam

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Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato

Thanks for the head's up, Dread.

You know, its seems to me that sooner rather than later, this whole system we have of creating credit identifies is going to collapse precisely because of hackers and criminals keep finding improved ways to get our private information.

Nobody's financial information is really private anymore.

We are all at risk of becoming indentity theft victims unless we have NO CREDIT and no money in the bank, either.

I have had to change my debit card THREE TIMES in the last five or six years because of this problem.

I'm seriously thinking of going into a total cash lifestyle because of this problem.

I long ago eschewed credit cards, and I may even give up my debit card because I no longer have any confidence in the electonic banking system.

I hear what you are saying...I am thinking about going to strictly cash myself.

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Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato