WARNING: BEWARE OF JURY SERVICE SCAMS

Residents of the Middle District of Tennessee continue to receive fraudulent phone calls from individuals claiming to be law enforcement officers informing the victim that he or she has failed to appear for jury duty in Federal Court. The scam caller threatens the victim with an arrest warrant or citation. The scam caller then advises the victim that he or she can avoid arrest or other negative consequences by making a payment, which may include purchasing a pre-paid gift card and then giving the card number to the scam caller.
The scammer may sound convincing and use real information about the victim; real court addresses; and real names of law enforcement officers, court officials and federal judges to make the scam appear more credible. Scammers may even “spoof” the phone number on caller ID so that the call falsely appears to be from a court number or the number of another government agency.

These phone calls are NOT from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, the U.S. Marshals Service, or other law enforcement agencies. You should not provide the caller with any personal information, credit card numbers, pre-paid card numbers, money or other sensitive information.

Here are the facts:
• The court will always send a jury summons by U.S. Mail. Initial contact between a Federal Court and a prospective juror will be a request through the U.S. Mail to complete a Juror Qualification Questionnaire (some jurors may subsequently go online to a secure court website to complete that questionnaire).
• The court does not ask prospective jurors to sign for their jury summons. Neither the court nor law enforcement will claim that someone signed for a jury summons or request a handwriting analysis.
• Neither the court nor law enforcement will demand payment over the phone. Federal Court officials will also never request that you make any payment of a fine by use of a prepaid money card, credit card, debit card, ACH transfer, Venmo, PayPal or cryptocurrency.
• The court does not have a kiosk to accept payments. Neither the court nor law enforcement will instruct someone to make payment at a kiosk.

Please report any scams to your local law enforcement officials. You may also report the scam to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
If you still have concerns, you may contact the Jury Office @ (615) 736-5483.