A familiar telephone scam continues to plague Shasta County residents. The Shasta County Marshal’s Office says an aggressive jury service scam has been hitting the area heavily over the past week, with many of them mentioning Judge Dan Flynn by name. Often the victim’s caller ID will show what appears to be a legitimate number, but prepaid cell phones can be programmed to show anything the caller wants. The victim is told that they’ve missed jury duty and the caller demands immediate payment in the form of a Green Dot card, a Moneypak card or other pre-paid card. When this demand is made, the caller will often insist that the victim remain on the line while en route to purchase such a card. Elderly people are often targeted in these scams, and scam artists are, by definition, skilled at convincing people of preposterous notions. That’s why many intelligent people have been tricked out of their money and are then too embarrassed to report it. No legitimate law enforcement agency would ever contact someone by phone and demand any sort of payment in this way, nor would they ever ask for personal information over the phone. The easiest defense is to simply hang up.