If you get a call, text, or email saying you missed jury duty and will be arrested unless you pay, it is a scam. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) describes this exact pattern: an urgent call from someone claiming to be a U.S. Marshal or local police officer, followed by official-looking documents and a demand for payment. The FTC states plainly that the missed jury duty is fake, the arrest threat is empty, and the whole thing is designed to steal your money.
The useful answer is simple: do not pay, do not respond to the documents, and do not treat the caller ID as proof of anything. The rest of this article explains how the scam works, what real law enforcement and courts will and will not do, and how to tell the difference.
How the scam is built
Most jury duty scams start with an urgent call from someone claiming to be a U.S. Marshal or an officer from your local police department (c04, c05). To catch you off guard, the caller may already know details about you, such as your full name or address (c06). That familiarity is meant to make the call feel real, not to prove it is.
The caller says you missed jury duty and threatens arrest unless you pay a fine using a payment app or cryptocurrency (c07). Newer versions add a text or email with a document that looks like an official arrest warrant, including how much you owe for missing jury duty (c08). The FTC says this makes the scam look more convincing, but it is all fake (c09).
What real law enforcement and courts will not do
The FTC lists behaviors that real authorities do not engage in. Real law enforcement will never text or email you an arrest warrant (c10). Even if the caller ID appears to come from your local police department or the U.S. Marshals, real officers will not call to say they will arrest you (c11, c12). They also will not threaten to arrest you if you hang up (c13). Courts never demand payment over the phone (c14).
Payment method is another signal. The FTC says only scammers insist you can pay only with a payment app, cryptocurrency, gift cards, or a wire transfer service like Western Union or MoneyGram (c15). Those methods are hard to reverse, which is why they are the scammer's preferred channels.
Why the documents and the caller ID are not evidence
A realistic-looking warrant and a familiar caller ID can both be faked or spoofed. The FTC's point is that the channel itself is wrong: real warrants are not delivered by text or email, and real officers do not make arrest threats by phone (c10, c12). A document that includes an amount owed is part of the script, not a record of a real court obligation (c08).
The scam also relies on urgency and isolation. The call is framed as urgent (c04), and the threat of arrest if you hang up (c13) is meant to keep you on the line and stop you from checking with anyone. Treat that pressure as a warning sign.
What to do when you get one
- Hang up. The FTC says real officers will not threaten arrest if you hang up (c13), so ending the call carries no real legal risk.
- Do not pay anything by payment app, cryptocurrency, gift card, or wire transfer. The FTC identifies these as the methods only scammers demand (c15).
- Do not treat a texted or emailed warrant as real. Real law enforcement will never send an arrest warrant that way (c10).
- Do not use the caller ID as verification. The FTC says even a number that looks like your local police department or the U.S. Marshals does not make the call real (c11, c12).
- Do not share account details or send money to "clear" a jury duty fine. Courts never demand payment over the phone (c14).
If you want to confirm whether you actually have a jury duty obligation, contact the court through a number you find independently rather than one the caller provides. The FTC material does not describe a specific court contact process, so that step is general prudence rather than a documented instruction in this source.
What the source does not say
The FTC alert does not name specific courts, jurisdictions, or case numbers, and it does not report how many people have been targeted or how much money has been lost. It does not identify particular scammers or groups, and it does not describe technical methods used to spoof caller ID or create the fake documents. It also does not give a timeline of when the scam started or how it has changed over time.
The alert does not say that any specific reported call was confirmed as a crime by an investigation, and it does not offer recovery steps for people who already paid. It also does not state whether reporting to any particular agency will lead to action on an individual case. Those points are outside what the source establishes.
Separating the claim from the confirmation
What is confirmed here is the FTC's description of the scam pattern and its statement of what real authorities do not do. What is not confirmed is any individual caller's identity, any specific victim's loss, or any enforcement outcome. The distinction matters: the pattern is enough to justify hanging up and refusing to pay, without needing to know who is on the other end.
The core test is behavioral and does not require an investigation. A demand for payment by app, crypto, gift card, or wire, paired with an arrest threat and a texted or emailed warrant, matches the FTC's scam description (c07, c08, c10, c15). Real courts and real officers do not operate that way (c10, c12, c14).