As I stepped from an exam room one busy morning last month, my office manager pulled me aside.
“Someone from the county courthouse is on the phone, and needs to talk to you right now,” she whispered.
“You know better than that,” I said. “While I'm seeing patients, I don't take calls from anyone except colleagues and immediate family.”
“He says he has a warrant for your arrest!”
I took the call.
“You failed to appear for jury duty,” the official-sounding voice said. That's a violation of New Jersey law, as you were warned when you received your jury summons. You'll have to come down here and surrender yourself immediately, or else we'll have to send deputies to your office. I don't think you'll want to be led through your waiting room in handcuffs.”
“Wait a minute,” I replied nervously. “I served on a jury less than a year ago. They said I wouldn't be called again for at least 3 years. There must be some mistake.”
“Perhaps we've confused you with a citizen with the same or a similar name,” he said. “Let me have your Social Security number and birth date.”
Alarm bells! Suddenly I realized what must be happening. “You should have that information already,” I replied. “Why don't you read me what you have?”
A short silence, and then … click.
I called the courthouse immediately. “Citizens who fail to appear receive a warning letter and a new questionnaire, not a phone call,” said the jury manager. “And we use driver license numbers to keep track of jurors.”
Like most other supposedly affluent professionals, doctors have always been popular targets for scam artists and con men, but their increasing creativity requires ever-higher levels of vigilance. This is especially true as the Internet becomes more popular and communication is facilitated. As the cartoon character Dilbert once said, there's a real dark side to the information age.
The phone company traced the call, which dead-ended at a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) circuit, as the police warned me it probably would. I'll be discussing the many benefits of VoIP and its potential usefulness to your practice in a future column. But for now, know that the downside of VoIP is that unscrupulous individuals can use the technology to appear to be calling you from a legitimate business when they are not.
Those of us of a certain age remember phony calls offering great deals on office supplies or waiting room magazine subscriptions. As those capers became well known they gradually disappeared, but scam artists are endlessly creative in finding new, clever ways to target professionals.
The jury duty scheme, I learned, is an increasingly popular one. Others involve calls from the “fraud department” of your bank, claiming to be investigating a breach of your checking or savings account, or one of your credit or debit card accounts. Another purports to be a “customs official” informing you that you owe a big duty payment on an overseas shipment.
And then there are a few old standbys: the irresistible offer of a “preapproved,” unsecured loan; the good news that a distant relative you never met has died, leaving you lots of money; the packet of “confidential inside information” that will save you a bundle on taxes.
Usually, the common denominator, and the biggest red flag, is a request for a Social Security number, a birth date, a credit card number, or other private information that could be used to steal your identity or rob you blind.
You may think you would never be fooled for a minute by any of these schemes. But trust me: These guys are good. And they sound quite authentic, particularly when they surprise you in the midst of a busy schedule.
So stay alert, trust no one you don't know personally, and always be suspicious of unsolicited offers and unexpected “windfalls.” The cliché, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is” is a cliché because it is true.
And always keep the following in mind:
▸ Do not give out bank account, Social Security, or credit card numbers over the telephone if you didn't initiate the call, no matter how legitimate the caller sounds. This is true of anyone claiming to be from a bank, a service company, or a government office, as well as anyone trying to sell you anything. If such callers insist upon “verifying” personal information, have them read the data to you from their records for you to confirm or deny.