How to Avoid Process Service Scams

Are you representing yourself in a civil legal matter? If so, you are probably trying to keep your expenses to a minimum. Shopping around for the cheapest price isn’t always to your advantage. There are a lot of scammers out there claiming to be process servers charging super low fees, but the outcome can be detrimental to your case. 

Common Scams

The most common process service scam is individuals claiming to be private process servers, when in fact they are not registered with the courts. They take your money, pretend to serve the papers, and disappear, leaving you to explain to the judge why the intended party never received the papers. Your case could be dismissed or, at the least, delayed.

The other common scam is done by registered private process servers. Some unethical process servers engage in gutter serves. A gutter serve is when the process server throws the papers away “in the gutter” instead of actually serving them. 

Sometimes process servers can get away with this for some time before they get caught by the courts. Using a large company that has a comprehensive training and monitoring program will give you the peace of mind that your papers will be served ethically and legally.

Checking with the courts

Before you hire any private process server, you should check with the circuit court to make sure that they are indeed registered or certified process servers. Even if you get the original list from the court clerk, if it is more than a few days before hiring you should check again to make sure they still have their license. If a process server is unethical and gets caught, they could lose their certification but try to still do business as if they didn’t. This leads to inaccurate service of process, which can derail or delay your case.

If you want to work with a reputable and ethical company with the resources to hire, train, and manage the best servers in the business, contact us today.