Court Warns of Door-to-Door, Jury-Duty Scam

The number of scam artists bent on acquiring confidential personal information by going door to door, asking residents why they failed to show up for jury duty is increasing at an alarming rate, San Diego County Superior Court officials said this week.

Marilyn Laurence, public affairs officer for the court, said officials have received numerous complaints in recent weeks about the scam.

Laurence said the door-to-door solicitors show up unannounced and then read the person’s name, address and phone number and ask why the person failed to report for jury duty. Those who raise questions are told to call a telephone number, which turns out to be a non-working number, for confirmation.

No one reporting the interrogation had been summoned for jury duty by any court. “It’s some kind of scam, for which we don’t really know the motive,” Laurence said. “But it’s clearly fraudulent. They’re trying to gain personal knowledge of an individual’s private life, for whatever reason.”

Laurence said a similar problem surfaced last year, when “we experienced a wave of people phoning San Diegans, using the jury ruse to ask information about banking, the number of kids in the home, physical handicaps, all sorts of things.”

Court officials say prospective jurors can be summoned only one way--through the mail.

“We don’t even know their phone numbers,” Laurence said of prospective jurors, “and we would never show up at the door.”

Court officials urged anyone confronted by a jury faker to:

* Call the police.

* Have the person show them a photo ID that indicates they work with the court system.

* Call Jury Coordinator Gerry Stevens at 531-4028.

* Not cooperate at all, since jurors are summoned only through the mail.