Thread by @rosaticorp

🚨 Just received a phone call from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office this afternoon. Officer reads off his badge number & proceeds to ask if this is [my name] located at [my address] w/ SSN# [reads last 4 of my social]. Fuck. Was walking through Costco as I took the call.

I confirmed accuracy. The officer proceeded to tell me that I failed to appear for jury duty & currently have a civil citation as a result, which can lead to an immediate arrest. He proceeded to ask if I was able to come down to the sheriff's office in town. He gave the address.

I quickly Googled the address, confirming it is in fact the sheriff's office in town. Damn, legit. I proceeded to tell him that I never received a jury notice. He says that a common scam is going around. Scammers are forging jury summons, causing all sorts of problems.

I had just moved into a new home a month ago. He listed off the date in which the letter should have arrived, and of course it was during the week I was moving. It all added up.

The officer stated that I had two choices: 1) drive down to the sheriff's office today or 2) an officer would come to my house. I immediately hopped in my truck and started driving there. I'm anal, zero chance I missed jury duty, I'm 100% innocent. Orange isn't my color.

Once I got in my car, I asked the officer for more proof that he was legitimate. He suggested I google the # that I took the call from. I did, it matched. He repeated his badge number, full name, the judge's name, etc. Google matched everything to a local corresponding person.

I asked if I could patch in my lawyer as I drove. The officer stated that I could call him once I arrived at the station, and that there is currently a gag order in effect due to the high profile case at hand. In his words, they were attempting to entrap the scammers.

After about 15 minutes on the phone, I was ~5 minutes away from the sheriff's HQ. The officer told me that I needed to bring two forms of ID, in addition to payment for the civil fines. He said I would be reimbursed once I could prove it was a forged signature.

Once I confirmed that I had the cash, the officer notified me that I needed to make payment at an alternate location prior to arriving to the sheriff's office. He re-routed me to a "federal payment processing location"❗️ And there I am, 20 minutes into this phone call...

after ditching my Costco basket mid-aisle, realizing I was getting scammed. THESE GUYS WERE GOOD. Their script was perfect. I fell hook, line & sinker. Every single data point matched. I'm young, and consider myself relatively tech savvy. Yet, I fell hard.

I got off the phone and called the sheriff's office, who unfortunately told me that I wasn't their first call today. Multiple people are getting scammed on a daily basis. I only realized it once payment had to be posted somewhere other than the sheriff's office.

I called back the scam number an hour later, no answer. They then called me back a few minutes after, starting the scam all over again. I went with it, only to feel more ashamed the second time. Once they realized I was screwing with them, they hung up.

Some call center somewhere is absolutely RAKING in the cash on this. And whoever is coaching them deserves every bit of their bonus this month. I respect the hustle. I want to punch them in the face just as much as I want to hire them.

Please roast me at your dinner table tonight, hopefully this story saves your mom, dad, grandma, whoever from falling for this insanity. If this post saves one person though, it's worth it. Thank you for attending my real world scam artist TED talk 🫡

Lmao the roast begins. No good deed goes unpunished.

Some qualifying points for the keyboard warriors:

1. It's easy to say "never pick up a number you don't know". A lot of careers depend on answering the phone. Mine is one of them. Also, you're telling me you won't pick up the Amazon or Uber Eats driver's call? Lots of examples. Hard to hide entirely on DND.

2. Law enforcement does call civilians, that's a normal thing. Law enforcement will *not* push you to pay or meet for payment. They didn't do this until 20 minutes into the call. I have personally received phone calls from law enforcement in my life for other events in the past. As a business owner, it's a thing that happens.

3. For those tough guys who act like they would've sniffed it out in the first minute, just realize that every single piece of info was accurate. My personal data + sheriff's address + judge, etc. Yes, all things available online. If they had led with "come pay us", of course i would've known from the start. American accent, calm, level-headed "officer". They were trained well.

4. The even more detailed aspect of the scam was that they knew I had just moved. Their storyline was that scammers were fraudulently signing summons for civilians, and they just needed to confirm my signature in person to confirm this is what happened. Dumb in retrospect? Of course.

5. You can both respect a scammer's hustle & sophistication while also wanting to lock them up. Both things can be true. As an entrepreneur, I appreciate their talents. Just wish they would devote them to legitimate careers.

6. Roast me all you want, but this post is serving it's purpose. 2M+ ppl now know about a scam that they did not previously. It's gut wrenching to read the stories of those who lost their life savings. No, this isn't click-bait. I don't have anything to sell you.

Shitty that I have to specify this as it's missing the entire point, but I will clarify my original verbiage to ensure no ill-will. I do not respect the con. It's despicable. The whole purpose of this post was to bring awareness. The word "hustle" was meant in the context of "work ethic" or "diligence". The guys on the phone were sharp, working well together, and performing their task. I respect their impressive tactics, call scripts, attention to detail, etc. I can understand how it could be taken that I "respected" the con (hustle) itself, which I do not. I'll chalk that up to poor word choice that a con is also known as a hustle. Everyone thinks they're too smart to get scammed until they aren't. The whole purpose of this thread was to showcase the crazy talents scammers have garnered so that you or a family member doesn't fall for them one day.