1/ This morning my wife got a voicemail from the US Marshalls office asking her to call back on an urgent matter. She googled the phone number showing on her phone to verify it was from the US Marshall's Oregon brach.
2/ My wife called back with me on speaker, and the officer said my wife had missed a jury summons and now had a contempt of court warrant, but that all she needed to do was come to the Marshall's office and reschedule for another court date. Which was weird, but not *that* weird.
3/ He gave us the address for the Marshalls office in PDX.
Then he said that she would also need to either post a bond or do 10 days of prison for not showing up. And then, as you can imagine, a whoooole lot of flags went up on our end.
Then he said that she would also need to either post a bond or do 10 days of prison for not showing up. And then, as you can imagine, a whoooole lot of flags went up on our end.
4/ Then he said we needed to bring $4500 in cash - it had to be cash, the federal government could not accept cashiers check or debit card -and that before we went to his office, we needed to deposit the cash in a "kiosk" at a different address.
5/ And then, of course, the jig was entirely up. We got off the phone, called the actual US Marshalls to ask where to report it (FBI, fwiw), and that was that.
BUT!!! It's pretty amazing how sophisticated everything leading up to those red flags were.
For example,
BUT!!! It's pretty amazing how sophisticated everything leading up to those red flags were.
For example,
6/ They knew a lot about my wife - address, age, place of birth - that they dropped into the early conversation as ways to verify she was who she claimed. We hit 'return call' and it showed - and still shows - on our phone as having dialed the US Marshalls.
7/ There was a receptionist who put us on hold. The 'officer' put us on hold twice to get approval for proceedings from the court house, and googling showed that the name of the judge and judge's admin person are, in fact, a real judge and admin person at the
8/ PDX federal courthouse. So all of the window dressing was pretty damn sophisticated and impressive.
But the actual ask was, probably necessarily, still pretty bats**t - and obvious topmost ppl if you haven't already gotten in a panic about going to jail for a week.
But the actual ask was, probably necessarily, still pretty bats**t - and obvious topmost ppl if you haven't already gotten in a panic about going to jail for a week.
9/ All of which is to say, be careful out there!
A lot of grifters are really good at this stuff. /end
A lot of grifters are really good at this stuff. /end
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