South Dakota Judicial System, Attorney General warn public that jury duty scam is making the rounds. Again.

AUGUST 21, 2024:

The South Dakota Attorney General’s Office and the South Dakota Unified Judicial System are warning the public about a scam that has resurfaced threatening people with being arrested or fined for failure to perform a court-ordered action.

Attorney General Marty Jackley said the scam comes via email or phone call and is designed to create immediate panic and pressure victims into providing personal information or making immediate payments to avoid arrest. He said if you receive a jury duty related call or email, do NOT provide any personal information or send money.

In the scam reported this week (Aug. 20, 2024), Jackley said a citizen received a call from someone identifying themselves as an officer with the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office. The “officer” said the citizen had missed jury duty, so an arrest warrant had been issued for them. Jackley said in this case, the citizen talked to the person again, but did not pay any money.

Making the fraud attempt even more devious, according to Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead, is that the phone number displayed on the caller ID was the actual telephone number for the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office. Additionally, he said, the scammer used the name of one of the actual employees of the sheriff’s office, making the scam more believable to someone who doesn’t check into the situation further.

Jackley said the person who received this scam call did the right thing. They took notes while talking to the scammer, researched the names and numbers provided and then called law enforcement.

Circuit courts in South Dakota send jury duty summons to people via United States Postal Service mail, but NOT by phone call or email. Jackley said while failure to report for jury duty can result in fines, the court system will never call or email you to demand money and, it does not accept gift cards, pre-paid credit cards, wire transfers or cryptocurrency deposits as payment.

Here are tips from the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division on how to handle such scam calls:

• Know that spammers can spoof the phone number they are calling from to make it appear that the call is actually coming from a law enforcement agency.
• Be cautious about answering a call from a telephone number you don’t recognize.
• If you receive a suspicious call, hang up and call the law enforcement agency at its official number. Do not trust the telephone number that might be provided.
• Do not give into high pressured tactics or threats to provide money.
• Never provide personal or financial information over the telephone.
• Do not deposit a check and then wire money.
• Hang up on robocalls.
• Talk to someone you can trust before you provide money or personal information to someone who contacts you.

If you have any questions, contact:

• your local Sheriff’s Office directly;
• the Attorney General’s Office Consumer Protection Division at 1-800-300-1986 or at https://consumer.sd.gov/; or

• your local Clerk of Courts office.

AUGUST 20, 2024:

The South Dakota Unified Judicial System is warning the public about a scam that has resurfaced in which individuals pose as law enforcement and falsely claim that the recipient has missed jury duty, owes fines and will be arrested if they don’t pay.

The scam comes via email or phone call and is designed to create immediate panic and pressure victims into providing personal information or making immediate payments to avoid arrest. If you receive a jury duty related call or email, do not provide any personal information or send money.

South Dakota’s circuit courts send jury duty summons to people via United States Postal Service mail, not by phone or email. While failure to report for jury duty can result in fines, the court will never call you to demand money. Additionally, South Dakota’s court system does not accept payment via gift card, pre-paid card, wire transfers or cryptocurrency deposits.

Anyone who receives a jury duty scam phone call or email should report it to the Consumer Protection Division of the South Dakota Office of the Attorney General at 1-800-300-1986 or consumerhelp@state.sd.us.

If you have questions regarding whether you have been summoned for jury duty with South Dakota’s circuit courts, contact your local Clerk of Courts office. For contact information visit https://ujs.sd.gov/Circuit_Court/Default.aspx.