Scammers tell Stanley County residents to pay jury duty fines in bitcoin

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - The Stanley County Sheriff’s Office told the United Judicial System (UJS) that they received more than 30 reports regarding suspicious phone calls.

There are some key signs to recognize a scam like these telling people that they missed jury duty.

The callers told Stanley County residents that there was a $2,000 warrant for their arrest and instructed individuals to visit a local convenience store and send money using Bitcoin.

“They would keep them on the phone while they drove to the bitcoin machine and tell them how do go about this action,” Chief Deputy Greg Swanson of the Stanley County Sheriff’s Office said.

These scammers tried to use the Sheriff’s Office’s phone number when calling and logo when sending emails in an effort to be more effectively deceiving.

UJS said anyone receiving calls regarding jury duty that they would not be receiving calls regarding jury duty.

“We would never call someone, we certainly would never ever demand money over the phone, we wouldn’t accept or look for things such as bitcoins, cryptocurrencies, those are really big red flags,” Greg Sattizahn, the state court administer for UJS said.

Jessie Schmidt from the Better Business Bureau South Dakota Region said these scams are usually swinging for a home run.

“These scams are dialing for dollars, they are placing hundreds if not thousands of phone calls a day, all they need is for a few people to send them hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time then they’re going to move on to the next caller,” said Schmidt.

One Stanley County resident reported losing $4,000 from a scam call.

The Stanley County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating the issue but does not have any suspects.

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