NORFOLK — A scam is making the rounds in Norfolk involving jury duty and faux law enforcement.
Scammers have been calling city residents pretending to be deputies from the Norfolk Sheriff’s Office. The crooks insist that the victim has missed jury duty and will be jailed if they do not pay a hefty fine, according to NSO spokeswoman Kaila DeRienzo.
The NSO first heard of the scam about a month ago when an elderly man paid nearly $1,000 to scammers to avoid jail time, DeRienzo added.
The man did not wish to be named, but DeRienzo said he was very shaken up when he walked into the NSO administration office holding a sheet of paper with two numbers written on it. One of the numbers had a 757 area code.
The man said that he’d received multiple calls from a scammer pretending to be a NSO deputy. The crook even used the real name of an NSO employee to make the scam seem real.
The scammer told the man he’d missed jury duty and threatened to jail him if he didn’t load hundreds of dollars onto prepaid cash cards and send them to the NSO deputy imposter.
By the time the man realized he was being scammed, he’d already lost a lot of money, DeRienzo said.
The NSO wants to remind people that all correspondence about jury duty will happen via mail, and no one will ever have to pay a fine if they miss jury duty.
“We will never call asking for money. We will never call regarding jury duty,” DeRenzio said.
If you think you’ve been scammed or want to report a scam, call the Norfolk Police Department Economic Crimes Unit at 757-664-7018.
