Involving court notices
Over the past couple of weeks, the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office has been made aware that there are victims being contacted by telephone and being advised that they have fines for not appearing in court. They are being advised to stay on the phone and to purchase a green dot money card. Once the card is purchased, the individual on the phone asks the victim to supply them with a credit card number.
A similar scam is making the rounds on the internet by email, in which a person is notified that they must appear in court and when contacted, ask for a payment to clear up the matter.
The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office has also investigated an incident in which an individual contacted the victim and advised them that they were a law enforcement officer with the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office. The victim was told that she had a warrant for her arrest for missing Grand Jury Duty. Neither the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office or the Clerk of Court’s Office handles business in that manner.
According to information provided by the Greenville County Clerk of Court, “The Clerk of Court is responsible for notifying prospective jurors when they have been randomly selected for jury duty for the Circuit Court. As required by law, a juror must be notified of selection for service fifteen days prior to the start of the term for which he/she has been summoned.
The Clerk of Court’s office will prepare the summons for each prospective juror and the summons will be delivered by first class mail. If a summons is returned as not being deliverable, the summons will be forwarded to the Sheriff’s office for service. The Sheriff’s office will attempt to locate a juror to advise them of their service.
At no time will Sheriff’s officers or court employees call a prospective juror to tell them that they failed to appear and a bench warrant has been issued. Nor will they ask for personal identifying information, such as bank account numbers or credit card information, nor ask for withdrawal of money or purchase of prepaid credit cards for the payment of a fine.
“Should a juror ever be in contempt for failure to appear, a juror would have to appear before a judge before a fine would be imposed.”
If you receive a phone call of this nature, do not give any personal information and do not purchase any money cards. Contact local law enforcement immediately to file a report, officials said.
