Greg's Corner

Even doctors can be scammed

By Greg Collier

Doctors are some of the most educated specialists in our country. Not only do they have to deal with college, med school, and residency, but as the science and technology advances, they have to keep educating themselves. So, some may find it surprising that doctors are just as vulnerable as the average consumer is to scams. We’re not even talking about medically specific scams like insurance fraud or doctor shopping for narcotics. We’re talking about one of the most common scams out there today, the jury duty scam.

For those who may not know, the jury duty scam is where scammers impersonate officials or law enforcement representatives to target individuals and extract money or personal information from them. Typically, the scammers will call their victims and threaten them with arrest for not showing up to jury duty unless the victim makes a payment then and there. The scammers will often ask for payment in untraceable ways, like cryptocurrency, gift cards, or prepaid debit cards, to name a few.

However, when doctors are targeted, the scammers don’t tell them they’ve missed jury duty. Instead, the scammers tell the doctors they failed to appear as an expert witness. Doctors may testify as expert witnesses in legal proceedings to provide their professional opinion and expertise on medical matters.

Recently in the Cleveland, Ohio area, several doctors were approached by scammers and threatened with arrest if they did not make a payment of $4000. The scammers even had personal information on each doctor. One doctor even paid $2000 to the scammers before the doctor’s bank realized the doctor was being scammed.

This is yet another example of how anyone can be scammed. Some people have lulled themselves into a false sense of security and have convinced themselves they can’t be scammed. Please take it from us that there is a scam out there for everybody. It’s just a matter if the right scammer can find you or not.

We realize not all of our readers are doctors. However, this scam does show that actual police departments will not contact you by phone if you miss a court date or jury duty. Any communication in these matters will be done through the mail, and if a payment does need to be made, that’s usually done at the courthouse.

If you receive a call like this, hang up and contact your local police at their non-emergency number.