Today’s efforts to avoid figuring out my health insurance situation was rudely interrupted by a call from an unknown number that I normally wouldn’t have answered, except that I had just requested an RX refill and I was hoping that it was my pharmacy telling me that the refill had been approved and that I could come pick up my medications. Alas, it wasn’t the pharmacy but someone calling from the Clark County Sheriff’s office telling me that, because I had failed to appear in court today, that Judge Palmer had issued two warrants against me for my failure to comply with my summons. Ok, that was a lot to take in with so much as a how-do-you-do.
I politely listened to the person on the phone who identified himself as Officer James Woodard (shield number 1969), but I was very confused about what this was all about. He said that I had been served a summons to appear today (9-3-2024) for Grand Jury duty and that because I didn’t show up, he was calling to inform me about the warrants. He informed me that this call was being recorded and that I could not hang up or put them on-hold. At some point he also added that I was not to discuss this with anyone. Red flags going up.
They said that on June 1st someone at my address (which they had) had signed the summons and that they were calling so that I could decide how to deal with these warrants. I asked for the name of the judge, which court this was in reference to, was I being charged with anything, etc. Needless to say, this sounded very fishy and when I said that I needed more information and some other confirmation than a phone call the officer offered to let me speak to his supervisor. I then spoke to Lieutenant Jeremy Daniels (shield number 2890). I was more than a bit suspicious that a police department as large as Clark County’s would be able to get away with four-digit badge numbers, and also this Lieutenant sounded way too young. I told them that I’ve served on juries before and that this business about a judge issuing two warrants against me for not showing up seemed over-blown. By this time we’d been on the phone for over 20-minutes and the panic feel was increasing. At the same time, or maybe because of the sense of panic, I just didn’t feel like things were quite adding up.
For example, when they “transferred me” to speak to the Lieutenant they didn’t transfer me to another phone number, but clearly just handed the phone off to the next person. And the caller-ID never indicated that this was a government or law enforcement phone line. When I asked for the extension number to call back they kept repeating the original number that they’d called me on. At one point they did call me back on another number, but it didn’t have the right caller-ID and didn’t seem any more “official” than the first number. There was one number that they gave me that did seem correct, but I had to remind myself that phone numbers, just email addresses can be faked or spoofed. At some point in the conversation they said that I needed to decide if this was going to be a civil or criminal issue. While they “transferred me” to the second number I muted my end of the call and I was able to look up the number and call the department they said they were working from. I was able to make this call using my computer on Google voice. I didn’t speak to anyone on that number but the recorded greeting indicated that they do not call people for what this person had been claiming. So, I unmuted the call and told them that I had contacted the Clark County Sheriff’s office and had been informed that said office does not make these kinds of calls, that I know that this is a spam call and they are more than welcomed to roll a unit out to my place and then hung up.
The pressure to not fuck this up was intense and I had a very hard time calming my nerves after I hung up. I can see how someone could easily be manipulated by these kinds of calls, especially if they don’t have the technical savvy to find a way to make a second call out undetected. It was very intense and unnerving. I could only imagine that had I stayed on the line that they would have found a way to persuade me to send some kind of fee to lessen the possibility of this mistake on my part from becoming a criminal matter. I really wanted to call someone afterwards to talk about what I had just experienced, but I was so amped that I knew that it would be better for me that I just step away and do something else, because a conversation about this would only keep me in this elevated state of anxiety. It did fuck me up for a more than a few hours afterwards, and even now as I’m writing this, I can feel my anxiety go up.
Ugh. I guess the lesson here is to never answer a call from an unrecognized phone number. It was unnerving that they did have so much information on me, but then all of it’s easily searchable on google. Damn. Welcome to the first week of September. This felt like I just barely avoided getting hit in a traffic accident. I need to go play music or play with my LEGO now.
Tags: daily random shit, escaped hoax call, scary phone call, spam, spoofing law enforcement
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