ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- The Albemarle County Circuit Court Clerk says scammers are calling people saying they missed jury duty and owe a fine. Then they ask people to pay the fee over the phone.

“That is not how we operate. We do not come in and arrest you. We may issue a summons for you to come to court to explain why you missed jury duty, but we do not demand money over the phone. If somebody is demanding money, it is a scam,” said Jon Zug.

Zug says the scammer wants to play into fear.

“Sometimes they’ll have a police scanner running in the background so you can hear radio traffic from a police department. Or they will have done research on either the police department or the sheriff’s office to find out a deputy or a police officer's name and they will use that name so that if you were to do a little bit of research it would seem like it’s legitimate. It’s not legitimate,” he said.

The courts will always issue summons via mail or in person. 

“We just issued our summonses for the October term last week. We always do this by mail. If you’re going to get a fine imposed as a result it will happen in the courthouse here by the judge. It’s not something that we’re going to demand money upfront over the phone. It just doesn’t happen that way,” Zug added.

Unfortunately, he says he knows people who have been victims of these scams.

“I had a woman who called me about two years ago who was taken for $3,000. I had to unfortunately inform her that we didn’t even have her in our system,” he said.

If there is a question whether it’s a scam or not, Zug says to call the clerk's office and they’ll be able to help.