The Nolan County Sheriff’s Office is alerting the community that a “Jury Duty” phone scam is taking place. In the last several days, members of from surrounding counties and Sweetwater have alerted law enforcement of the scam.

It was reported that the scammer identifies himself as a member of a law enforcement agency, and notifies the victim that they missed jury duty. The scammer then tells the victim that an arrest warrant has been issued for their arrest. The victim will then be notified, to avoid arrest, funds would need to be added to a Green Dot prepaid card and the number on the back of the card would need to be forwarded to him. During the time of processing, the scammer attempts to keep the victim on the line; and once the transaction is complete, the scammer will end the call.

It has also been reported that during some of the phone calls, the scammer has given the names of local officials, which may further confuse some potential victims. We cannot emphasize enough that absolutely no one from the sheriff’s office or police department will ever call to solicit the payment of fines or fees on behalf of the court, or for any other reason.

Avoid being a victim:
– Courts and law enforcement do not contact you regarding jury duty, over the phone.
– Courts and law enforcement will not ask you to provide personal information over the phone.
– Courts and law enforcement will not collect any fees over the phone for missing jury duty, and certainly not instruct you to purchase any sort of gift card as the method of payment.

Nolan County Sheriff David Warren wants citizens to be aware that the person(s) involved in these scams can be very convincing, and is urging anyone who is contacted to treat any unsolicited caller who requests payment or access to personally identifiable information with extreme skepticism, regardless of who the caller claims to represent. When in doubt simply hang up, or get the caller’s name, hang up, and then call the business or government entity back at a phone number you know to be correct.