Warner Robins man falls victim to jury duty scam call
McGhee says one day he received a call someone claiming to be a Houston County Sheriff's Office Sergeant saying he missed jury duty and would have to either spend the night in jail or pay the bail amount through Bitcoin.
WARNER ROBINS, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Scammers have found a new way to steal your money: through Bitcoin. Kathleen resident Charles McGhee was recently scammed with a jury duty call.
McGhee says one day he received a call someone claiming to be a Houston County Sheriff’s Office Sergeant saying he missed jury duty and would have to either spend the night in jail or pay the bail amount through Bitcoin.
“He asked me how much I could afford to pay, to not spend the night in jail,” he said. “My daughter was there hearing all this, so I wanted to hurry this up. And I wasn’t very confrontational with him because of my daughter, so I say, ‘What will it take?’ He said, ‘It will be about $1,200 to keep you from spending the night in jail.”
McGhee says once they settled on an amount of $900, the caller then gave him a list of instructions.
“He said, ‘What I need you to do is get the money from wherever you get it from and take it to this convenience store,'” he said. “They have a Bitcoin machine.’ So, he said take the money there, put it in the machine, and it will print out a voucher for you and a receipt, and it didn’t print out neither one.”
McGhee says once the caller was given the $900, he then asked for more. That’s when McGhee knew this was a scam.
“When he started talking about the additional money, I drove to the sheriff’s department,” he said. “And took the phone in there while he was talking, but by then he had hung up, so I don’t know why they choose me, it’s likely they had data on me already.”
McGhee says this will never happen to him again
“I feel like now; I will never let my guards down again. I don’t care who you are, you will get a confrontation from me from now on. It was like the perfect storm, everything kind of fell into place for them, but I’m not afraid to say next time, ‘It’s not going to be that easy.'”
Houston County Clerk of Superior Court Clerk Terri Childers says phone calls is not how the courts operate.
“We will not call you, neither will the sheriff’s department, we send all our jury summons by mail,” she said. “If you miss jury duty you will not get a phone call. Everything is done through the mail, so that’s your first sign, do not believe them.”
Childers says if you are anyone you know has been involved in a scam call like this, you can reach out to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center or the Federal Trade Commission.
