Jury Scam in Coos Co., Jan. 5

For the third time in 6 months, the Coos County Sheriff’s Office received numerous reports from residents of Coos County of having received scam phone calls this week from a male subject claiming to be ‘Officer Frank Burns” with the Coos County Sheriff’s Office or Lieutenant John Godwin. This suspect is claiming that the victims failed to show up for Jury Duty, and a warrant has been issued for their arrest and officers are on their way to take them into custody immediately. He claims that if the victim sends in a fine, he’ll cancel the warrant. Again the Sheriff’s Office would like to warn citizens of this scam and others like it. The Coos County Sheriff’s Office does not have an “Officer Frank Burns” and a failure to show up for Jury Duty would not be followed up in this manner. At this point, no actual losses have been reported, the victims all said the story didn’t sound convincing. The caller uses prepaid ‘burner’ cell phones, so tracing the source of the call has not been successful. The suspect has placed calls from at least four different phone numbers in the last two days. The caller’s voice sounds like that of an adult male, possibly with very little education, and speaks with what may be a southern dialect. The phone numbers he’s called from are all in 541 area code, with prefixes 213, 215 and 205. Those prefixes are assigned to wireless phone resellers in the Bend, Pendleton and Klamath Falls areas. Please do not provide or verify any personal information over the telephone, and do not agree to wire money or put money on prepaid cards to forward to anyone without first verifying their claim by calling the agency they claim to represent. Keep yourself aware of the many different fraud attempts reported around the state by browsing the website hosted by the Oregon Department of Justice, and sign up to receive scam alerts at http://www.doj.state.or.us/consumer/pages/scam_alert.aspx. You can also report any suspicious calls toll free at 1-877-877-9392, or you can make the report online at https://www.doj.state.or.us/finfraud/concompform.shtml.