Identity theft scammers, pretending to work for local courts, are calling potential victims with the news that they have failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant has been issued for their arrest. They then ask victims for personal confidential information, including Social Security numbers, birth dates and credit card numbers for verification purposes. This is exactly the information scammers need to commit identity theft.

The jury duty scam is very new and has already been reported in nine states: Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.

In reality, court workers do not call potential jurors and ask for their social security numbers, credit card numbers and other personal information. Most courts use Postal mail exclusively for jury matters.

"Whereas it's easy to avoid many scams by simply using common knowledge, it makes it much easier to protect yourself if you know about the other scams in advance," said Dr. Audri G. Lanford, co-editor of Internet ScamBusters. 

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