Jury Duty Scam

This one's for real.

The phone rings, you pick it up, and the caller identifies himself as an officer of the court. He says you failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. You say you never received a notice. To clear it up, the caller says he'll need some information for "verification purposes"-your birth date, social security number, maybe even a credit card number.

This is when you should hang up the phone. It's a scam.

This takes a lot of moxie - unlike Nigerian financial transfer spam, this requires the scammer to be in proximity to the victim. Not physical proximity, but almost certainly jurisdictional proximity (same state or nearby state). Anyone with CallerID will have a start on who the scammer is, although CallerID can be spoofed.

Older people in particular are targeted disproportionally. Pass this on to older family and friends.

Confirmation at Snopes.