There are so many different kinds of scams that are going after residents of Fayette and Coweta counties. In the last four weeks we’ve covered relationship scams, bank and crypto scams, email and gift card scams and even talked about how one Fayette County woman got all her scammed mom’s money back. 

Captain Brian Lee of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department sees a lot of jury duty scams.

Capt Lee said, “We had several victims call and say they fell for the jury duty scam. That is where people get phone calls. The bad guys that are better at doing it spoof the phone number. So at least on your caller id, it says Fayette County Sheriff’s Office.”

Captain Lee says they may even use the name of a real officer, claiming that someone missed jury duty and that they have a warrant for your arrest.  

This exact scam almost got Angela McNulty, a corporate high tech professional, just over a month ago. When the so-called Fayette County Sheriff’s Department called her, she was traveling for work and was in London, England. The caller ID said Fayette County Sheriff’s Office. 

“It went to voicemail before I could answer it. He had a southern accent. He said, this is Deputy Clinton Ryan with Fayette County Sheriff’s Department. I’m trying to make contact with Angela McNulty. Please call me back.” The number he left her was a 770 local number. Angela’s first thought was panic, that something had happened to her family while she was traveling. So she called back right away.  

“He said, ‘Your family’s fine, but I’m trying to make contact with you. Do you realize that you missed jury duty last week?’ Well, I was in London for two weeks, so I was in London the week before. I was like, I don’t know, I’m out of the country. I had no idea about jury duty,” said Angela. 

This supposed Deputy sounded very official. He gave Angela dates, details, told her that twenty other people had also missed jury duty. So she asked what she was supposed to do about it. He asked her to verify her address, and he read her address to her, not her current home, but one she had lived at a year ago before she moved. “And I said, ‘Oh, well that must be the mistake because we don’t live there anymore. We moved recently and I did not receive any notification.’”

The scammer then told her that they had sent a second notification to the correct address, and he read that to her. “He made everything sound extremely official,” said Angela. He claimed she was on a recorded line, and asked her to write down and recite her charges back to him, as affirming that she understood what she’d been charged with. He told her she’d need to come to the sheriff’s department to sign an affidavit that she was not aware of jury duty. When she explained that she was still in England, he told her that she’d need to secure a bond. 

“So I’m like, ‘How much is the securing of the bond?’” After going through a litany of charges against her, he said he’d need to transfer her to the clerk of the court. He told her not to hang up, not to transfer the call and not to use her speakerphone. 

“And then he transfers me and you can hear it through the phone. It sounds like transferring and there’s music, and I’m waiting for somebody to answer. So then I get this other person completely different accent, completely different voice, sounds completely American, no southern accent, no foreign accent. And he goes through the same thing again of telling me, ‘You’re on a recorded line. This is official Fayette County Sheriff business. What’s your name? Tell me today’s date.’ And then he made me tell him what the citations were, the citation numbers. And so then he pretended to look up my information, put me on hold, made me wait, and then comes back and he says, ‘I have your fines for these citations. The failure to appear fine was like $4,000 and the contempt of court was $5,000. And he said, we need you to pay your fine or a warrant will be issued for your arrest.”

According to Capt. Lee Angela’s experience so far is textbook with what he sees regularly. He says scammers say, “In lieu of going to jail, you can pay the fine that we will present to the court. And that keeps you out of jail. And so most folks who have never been in trouble and never broken the law, immediately panic because they’re good people and it scares ’em. Maybe they have a job that they could possibly lose if they were incarcerated. So the scamster will say, ‘You’re going to have to pay this. How do you want to do it?’ And they want to get the account settled immediately. So the scamster will say, ‘That’s simple. You can go to any Walgreens or Target or Walmart and buy some Apple gift cards or Amazon gift cards or Home Depot gift cards and buy $400 worth and read me the number, send a picture, take a picture front and back. Send me the number. I’ll text you a receipt and you won’t go to jail. So that’s an example of something that happened recently.”

In Angela’s case, they were after Venmo, PayPal or Zelle payments instead of gift cards. Because she was overseas, it seemed more believable that since she didn’t have access to her bank accounts, they might want a cash payment app. But the amount seemed fishy to Angela. 

“I literally said to him, ‘I don’t have $9,000 to give you. Who has $9,000 laying around doing nothing?’ And he said, he knew I was in London, ‘If you don’t secure your fine, a warrant will be issued for your arrest when you try to reenter the country at border immigration control. If you do secure your fine, even with a partial payment, we can suspend the warrant until you can come to the sheriff’s office, sign the affidavit, and any money that you deposit towards your fine, once you sign the affidavit and prove that you did not receive notice of the summons will be returned to you with a cashier’s check at the clerk’s office.’”

“This is where I got very suspicious. He said, ‘Let me put you on hold and see what we can do to accommodate you. I’m going to talk to my supervisor since you are out of the country and can’t come down to the courthouse.’ And I said, ‘Okay, that’s great.’ So then he puts me on hold for what seemed like a really long time. He comes back and he says, I’ve spoken to my supervisor and the clerk of court. The court does accept a Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle. And then at that point he’s like, how much money do you have? Can you do as your deposit for an online payment? I’m like, I don’t have $9,000 in my Venmo either. I think I have $200 in my Venmo.’ And he’s like, ‘I will see if they’ll accept that.’ And so then he puts me on hold and he comes back and now I’m suspicious. And so I said, ‘ I need to speak to my attorney.’

“And he said, ‘you can speak to an attorney, however, if you do not secure deposit for your fine, then the special approval will be rescinded and when you attempt to re-enter the country, you will be arrested.’”

With five days left in her trip, Angela told the scammer she was going to call the sheriff’s office in the morning and talk to Sheriff Babb. The scammer threatened her with a warrant again. “I said, I’m not giving you any money right now. So we’re at an impasse. And then he said, well, let me transfer you to this other person and see if we can get some sort of exception or exemption.”

A third person gets on the line. Angela’s scam alerts in her head are going off, so she told that person she wasn’t going to give them any money, “I think you’re trying to trick me, and you’re trying to scare me. And then he starts yelling at me, ‘We are going to follow proper procedure in this office! Fayette County Sheriff’s Office already made exceptions and allowing you to do this because you’re out of the country, blah, blah, blah, and we are not going to make any other.’”

“And I said, I’m not giving you any money, so when I get back to the country arrest me. So I hung up on him and then I’m like, I’m just going to be sure about this.” 

Angela had a friend who used to work fraud crimes as an attorney for the US government, and she texted her,  “Hey, I’m in London and this just happened to me and I’m just wanting to confirm that when I get back on Friday that I’m not going to get arrested. And she was like, ‘oh, no, no, that’s a total scam. The sheriff’s office is never going to call you about jury duty ever, and they’re certainly not going to ask you for any money over the phone. And Fayette County Sheriff’s Department, God bless ’em, they don’t do no Venmo. Please tell me you didn’t give ’em any money.’ I’m like, ‘No, I didn’t give ’em any money.’”

Angela missed out on a great dinner with her colleagues while she talked for some 30 minutes to these scammers. And she thinks she’s going to have “a hell of an international phone bill when I get back.” But that’s how long it took for her to realize that the scam was a fake. Thirty whole minutes of her life. Angela was smart enough to catch it. And now everyone reading this will also be smart enough to know what this scam looks like. 

Lori Varnadoe-Clark, a small business owner who used to live in Coweta County, also got a call like this. Her scammer wasn’t as sophisticated. The number said it was from Mableton, but they claimed to be Coweta County Sheriff’s Department. At the time she was expecting the delivery of a rug, so she answered an unknown number. At first he got her name wrong; he asked for Lora. He introduced himself as a sergeant with the Coweta County Court System and told her she had missed jury duty the day before. 

“Now I owed a fine. It didn’t sound right in my brain because I haven’t lived in Coweta County for over a year, like 14 months really. I’d already changed my driver’s license and everything. So I told him, I appreciate you calling me. I’m going to call Coweta County Court System right now and find out,” said Lori. 

Her would-be scammer said, “’No, ma’am, you don’t need to call them. I’m telling you this is what’s going on and you need to pay the fine.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to be doing that. I’m going to call them and I appreciate you calling me. And I hung up and called Coweta County Sheriff’s Office immediately.” Lori stopped the scam in its tracks. She was ready to give the Sheriff’s office the phone number, but they said it was likely a burner phone and that the number wouldn’t be traceable.  

Lori’s response to this scam is EXACTLY what any person can do. Hang up right away and don’t get caught in their emotional fear tactics. 

And know the red flag—no legitimate government office will ever ask you to pay with gift cards or with cash applications like PayPal, Venmo, Zelle or CashApp. Scammers may have your name, your address, including past addresses. They might sound official. When in doubt, call the Sheriff’s Department or the Clerk of the Court from a number you didn’t get from the would-be scammer. Look that number up on your phone if you think your laptop has been compromised and vice versa.