Aug 10, 2026
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Add us on GoogleKimberly Fudge, a 38-year-old finance manager living outside Tampa, spent nearly 10 hours last month driving alone, feeding thousands of dollars into cryptocurrency ATMs — convinced that if she didn’t pay bail for missing jury duty, she’d be arrested.
She lost $25,000. And she never missed jury duty at all.
The ploy to gain crypto ATM deposits
The scheme began at 10:43 a.m. on a Tuesday, according to the Wall Street Journal, when an unknown number called her newly arrived refurbished phone. A caller claiming to be from Pasco County said an angry federal judge had issued a warrant for her arrest after she allegedly failed to appear for jury duty. The scammers knew her parents had retired from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department.
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They offered her a deal: pay bail, confirm her signature didn’t match the document’s and get a full refund. One condition — a supposed gag order meant she couldn’t tell anyone.
“They had me scared,” Fudge told the Journal. “They knew my Social Security number. They knew how much I had in my bank account. They had every single thing about me.”
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A team of five or more fraudsters, all speaking with convincing Florida accents, kept her on the phone as she drove to a convenience store with abandoned gas pumps and a cryptocurrency machine. She hesitated, then went back in when the “officer’s” friendly tone disappeared and he reminded her that deputies were two blocks away.
By 6:30 p.m., Fudge had deposited multiple payments totaling $25,000, including a $5,000 credit card cash advance and $3,000 transferred from her husband Jonathan after she texted him — on the scammers’ instruction — asking for money, no questions asked.
Jonathan sent the money without question — but when she asked for more, something didn’t feel right. He asked ChatGPT why his wife might need money urgently “no questions asked.” The chatbot listed several benign reasons, but also flagged it as a possible scam. He called 911. Kimberly walked through their front door at 8:28 p.m., exhausted and sobbing, but safe.
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A surge in jury-duty scams and impostor fraud broadly
The jury-duty scam has been rampant in the Tampa area specifically. Just the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office received 44 reports of it so far this year, up from 25 for all of 2025, Sgt. Andrew Miller, head of the economic-crimes unit, told the Journal.
And the broader trend is alarming. According to the FTC, Americans lost $3.5 billion to impostor scams in 2025 — nearly triple the 2020 figure — with government impostor scams accounting for approximately $920 million of that total, up from $789 million the prior year.
Why these scams work, and how to protect yourself
Cybersecurity experts noted in the Journal explain that so-called “panic scams” work by triggering stress responses that put victims into fight-or-flight mode, skewing rational judgment. Scammers apply authority, urgency and relentless pressure. As Sgt. Miller observed, “The second that they get off the phone is the second they start thinking on their own.”
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In Fudge’s case, experts say the refurbished phone probably arrived pre-loaded with spyware — explaining how the scammers could see her financial information, as well as her location, texts and internet searches in real time. The fix, they say, is simple: always restore factory settings on a refurbished device before use.
According to the FTC’s consumer guidance on jury duty scams, courts never ask you to pay over the phone, nor do they ever ask for sensitive information like your Social Security number or date of birth by phone.
So, if you receive a call like this, hang up immediately. Don’t pay, don’t give personal information and don’t call back any number they provide. If you think the call could be real, look up the court’s website or call the clerk’s office directly at a number you find independently. Then, report the scam to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
The FTC’s broader impostor scam guidance also states to never transfer money, send cryptocurrency, or move funds to “protect” them in response to an unexpected call — anyone asking you to do so is a scammer.
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With a writing and editing career spanning over 15 years, Emma creates and refines content across a broad spectrum of industries, including personal finance, lifestyle, travel, health & wellness, real estate, beauty & fitness and B2B/SaaS/tech.
