Jury Service Scam and Impersonating a Friend

Published: 28 September 2020

Jury Service Summons Scam

Please beware and warn others about scam texts which demand the recipient to perform jury service or pay a fee to postpone it.  The texts look like they have come from UK Government and link to a very convincing government branded webpage.

A genuine summons for jury service would ask you to confirm whether or not you can attend and to explain your reasons for being unavailable.  Any message mentioning exchanging money should be ignored.

Whilst we have heard about this scam being performed by text, it is quite possible the same tactic could be adopted in scam emails, letters and phone calls.  Please be careful and let others know to be careful too. 

Impersonating a Friend Scam

One of our fantastic CAPASP supporters has let us know about a recent scam targeting them.  The scammer pretended to be a friend and made contact using that friend's 'messenger' account asking for some help.  The impersonator later transferred to 'Whatsapp' to continue the conversation and also sent an email without asking for the target’s email address in an effort to convince them it was genuinely their friend asking for help.

The scammer said he was having trouble accessing his online banking and was waiting for new accounts to be opened and so needed help paying an urgent bill.  The scammer urged his target to go into their bank account and told them to download either ‘Teamviewer’ or ‘AnyDesk’.  Fortunately our supporter did not do this as these allow someone remote access to a device.  Instead our supporter spoke to their friend on his landline to inform him that his accounts had been hacked.

CAPASP warn it is quite possible the friend’s email account had been compromised, allowing hackers to access details of other accounts stored in the inboxes there.  You can find out if your account has ever been compromised in a data breach by visiting https://haveibeenpwned.com/ which will also give details of any breach affecting you.  If your details have been affected by a data breach you should change your password immediately.