Beware of Process Server Scams
Beware of Process Server Scams
Process Service Fraud aka Sewer Service
It’s known in legal circles as “sewer service.†The public knows of it as process service fraud. This fraud is when one fails to serve a notice of complaint and then files a false affidavit claiming the notice has been properly served. When the debtor doesn’t show up in court, the collector can then apply for, and almost always wins, a default judgment.
The first a victim often learns about the fraudulent judgment is when their bank account is seized or a lien is exposed. The judgments also ruin a person’s credit report.
Consumer advocates say the practice has rapidly grown in recent years. It’s fueled by many sources. One is the recessionary rise in consumer debt actions. Another is the emergence since 2000 of companies that buy up charged-off debt for pennies on the dollar, and then seek to recover the full debt, along with interest, etc., for themselves. Another is unethical lawyers who are motivated to win at any cost. Another is unethical process servers who get paid by just saying they did the job.
On July 21, 2009, saying they were the victims of a “widespread fraud on New York’s courts,†State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Wednesday filed a suit to throw out financial judgments against 100,000 people throughout New York State, including almost 18,000 on Long Island.
The 100,000 each had to pay an average of $5,474, because they were unaware that lawsuits had been filed against them in state courts. None knew of the alleged delivery of a writ, summons, or other legal papers to the person required to respond to them.
As a Deputy Sheriff, I’d never done or even heard of sewer service. The first I’d heard was in the James K. Olson fraudulent claim of service of his Reno wife resulting in a fraudulent and onerous default restraining order @ Gun Controllers Among Us, Marin County California Courts @ http://www.broowaha.com/articles/3749/gun-controllers-among-us-marin-cou... a fraudulent and heinous $300,000 default judgment @ Flip Flop Rers Among Us, James K. Olson @ http://www.broowaha.com/articles/3630/flip-flop-rers-among-us-james-k-olson. Then I came across it again with John and Kay Sickler @ Cheaters Among Us, Sickler @ http://www.broowaha.com/articles/3320/cheaters-among-us-sickler.
And again with Scott and Feather Dugan @ Outlaws Among Us, Zane http://www.broowaha.com/articles/3394/outlaws-among-us-zane.
And again with Swindled By Your Own College @ http://www.broowaha.com/articles/5044/swindled-by-your-own-college.
Local Northern Nevada names like David Wolfe from the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department as well as Mike Star of Northern Nevada Investigations came up several times. So did legal assistant John Ham, lawyer Cliff Young, lawyer Scott Tisevich, and lawyer John P. Springgate. So also did lawyers Gayle A. Kern and Michael Lerner.,
San Rafael, California attorneys Steven T. Schoonover and Michael B. Samuels' names came up.
Process is the general term for the legal document by which a lawsuit is started and the court asserts its jurisdiction over the parties and the controversy. In modern U.S. law, process is usually a summons. A summons is a paper that tells a defendant that he is being sued in a specific court that the plaintiff believes has jurisdiction. Served with the summons is a complaint that contains the plaintiff's allegations of wrongdoing by the defendant and the legal remedy sought by the plaintiff. The summons also informs the defendant that he has a specified number of days under law to respond to the summons and complaint. If the defendant does not respond, the plaintiff may seek a default judgment from the court, granting the plaintiff the legal relief specified in the complaint.
Rules of civil procedure and criminal procedure determine the proper form of legal process and how it should be served.
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If I have to, I will spend
If I have to, I will spend the rest of my life to get Reno lawyer Cliff J. Young disbarred over his dispicable tactics.
San Rafael, California
San Rafael, California attorneys Steven T. Schoonover and Michael B. Samuels' names came up.
San Rafael, California attorney Steven T. Schoonover pulled a sewer service on me!!! Problem is it takes money to hire a lawyer and you have to find a lawyer that will go after another lawyer. Ain't happening. Lawyers just circle the wagaons to protect each other and continue screwing their clients. Justice for the lawyers and judges, but none for the clients.
I didn't know someone had
I didn't know someone had done a sewer service on me until I later saw it on my credit report. The US Supreme Court says it is now required that labs technicians, doctors, expert witnesses, etc. be required to physically appear in court rather than just submit a deposition or affadavit. That is a good thing. Like the right to confront one's accuser. Process servers should be held to the same standard. Drag their lazy lying asses into court, assess fines and pull their liscenses and make them do their job legally as they're supposed to.
I found out the hard way
I found out the hard way about ACS and their sewer service. If I have to, I will spend the rest of my life disbarring Reno lawyer Gayle A. Kern over her dispicable tactics with my homeowners association.
http://garyweiss.blogspot.com
http://garyweiss.blogspot.com/2009/12/return-of-sewer-service.html
Some years ago, a friend of mine got his annual credit report--the free one, not the one you get through bogus "freecreditreport" websites or the outfit Ben Stein shills for. Something odd stood out on the report. It seems that he was being sued! This was the first time he'd heard about it.
My friend was the victim of a foul practice known as "sewer service," based on the ancient practice of sheriffs tossing lawsuit papers in the sewer rather than serving them on the defendants, and filing false affidavits that they have been served.
My friend wasn't served in the suit at all by an unscrupulous process server, and the debt he was claimed to have owed was entirely bogus. He showed up in court and the suit was dismissed.
Sewer service is a great scam, and a very old one. The courts accept affidavits of service at face value, and enter judgments against people who often do not owe the money at at all, are victims of identity theft, or have a valid defense. Even if they don't, they are entitled to their day in court.
The New York Times today reports that a class action suit has been filed in federal court against alleged perpetrators of sewer service. I'm glad that something is being done about this, but a suit is not enough. People who perpetrate sewer service should be put in jail. It is fraud and also perjury, as it involves process servers
New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo has started taking criminal action against sewer-service scam artists, and that's great. These people belong in jail, not just back in the civil courts that they have abused.
The court system, judges and clerks, need to be proactive about this abuse. Judges and clerks are public officials, and they should blow the whistle on sewer service when they see it happening.
One thing I wonder is whether the sewer-servers alone are culpable, and whether the companies for which they work -- the big banks, utilities, and their slimy collection agencies -- aren't perfectly aware that sewer service is being utilized. As has become evident in suits involving defaulted mortgages, often collection agencies and factors who buy debts do not have sufficient paperwork to prove their case.
I'll bet that the collection agencies know that these outfits carry out sewer service, thereby letting them get an easy victory without proving their case against people who owe them money -- and those who don't.
Ten years ago, I spent 15
Ten years ago, I spent 15 minutes behind bars secondary to a Long Island sewer service. The process server claimed I had not been in my place of work on three occasions when I was open for business with numerous witnesses and a busy appointment book to prove where I was. I ended up in contempt of court in a hearing I had religiously attended with my attorney on every other occasion, before and after.
These fake process servers are a chronic unindicted criminal enterprise on Long Island for many years. Kudos to Mr. Cuomo for indicting one of these many felons.
One of the most fundamental
One of the most fundamental elements of due process for civil defendants — notice of a pending legal action through service of process — simply gets ignored in thousands of instances. “Sewer service†was a major concern of court reformers in the 1960s; it sounds as if the problem may never actually have gone away.
Sewer service seems to be the norm. I have a client in a real estate partition action that was sewer served and a default judgment was entered. Realizing that something was amiss by looking at the squiggles masquerading as signatures on the affidavit of service filed with the court. I did some investigation and pulled the Notary’s signature cards from the NY Secretary of State under New York’s freedom of information law. All three signature cards (the original and the two renewals) bore different person’s signatures and all were different from the squiggle on the affidavit of service.
At that time, the judge didn’t seem to care because according to him the property had to be partitioned anyway. The Secretary of State didn’t care that they licensed a Notary Public that was committing fraud on both them (by having another sign the Notary Public application and/or renewals) and on the courts by “lending†their Notary license and stamp to a secretary working for the process server to notarize a first squiggle (allegedly of the prcess server) with a second squiggle (allegedly of the Notary) using the Notary’s name and license number.
In another unrelated case, a friend of mine received a housing court notice (post card), but never received papers. She is an attorney. She pulled the affidavit of service from the court file. I thought it strange that the Notary Public was qualified in a county very distant from the place where process was allegedly served.
Her husband decided to drive to the Notary’s address to investigate. On the Notary’s porch were sacks of pre-signed affidavits of service for the Notary to notarize. I guess that Notary did not administer the oath to each process server and personally witness each signing in her presence.
Other states (e.g. Connecticut) circumvent this type of wholesale fraud by requiring all service to be done by the State Marshal
I've been a victim of this
I've been a victim of this crap. What do we do besides shooting 'em?