WARNING

Got this from my councilman this AM.

I am writing to alert you to a Jury Duty scam that was reported to me by the Sheriff's Department.

The scam is essentially an effort to steal your identity, and it has been verified by the FBI. Please pass this on. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call.

Most of us take summons for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of scam has surfaced.

A caller will contact you and claim to be a Jury Coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Once you give out any of this information your identity has been stolen.

The scam has been reported so far in at least 11 states. This scam is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they ' re with the court system.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

DON'T GIVE YOUR SS NUMBER TO ANYONE, REGARDLESS OF THEIR ID.