Process Servers Knock in the Early Morning

Bam! Bam!! Bam!!! I jumped out of bed and rushed to my window wondering who in the world would be banging on my front door at 5:30 in the morning.

Standing at my door was a white man who looked like he could have been an undercover cop.

He was wearing a black pullover and backward baseball cap, and had what appeared to be a police badge hanging from a chain that was around his neck.

I shouted, "Can I help you?" from a window in the second-floor bedroom.

"Where are you?" he yelled back.

"Here, at the window," I said.

"What window? There are like 48 windows," he said.

"Who are you? What do you want," I asked, now getting concerned about the man's failure to identify himself.

 Where's "Patricia Bassett," he hollered up at me.

"I don't know anybody named Patricia Bassett," I said. "No one with that name lives at this address.

"How long have you lived here?" he asked.

I asked him to identify himself. He again refused.

"Sir, you either tell me who you are or I'm calling the police," I said.

"You d____ a__!" he screamed and gave me the finger before sprinting down the stairs and jumping into a red pickup truck.

I called the Maywood Police Department. Officers had no knowledge of anyone scheduled to serve a warrant at my address.

Undercover cops or deputy sheriffs would have identified themselves as the police, I was told.

Maybe he was like Dog, the celebrity bounty hunter, I thought.

But Illinois is not friendly to bounty hunters. Under Illinois statutes, "no bail bondsman from any state may seize or transport unwillingly any person" found in the state who is in violation of a bail bond.

If the man wasn't the police and wasn't a bounty hunter, then he was likely a process server.

Unfortunately, there's no way to track down a renegade process server.

Process servers are basically unregulated.

"It's funny that you are calling about this now," said Steve Patterson, a spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff's Department.

Although everyone who serves legal paperwork is supposed to be a private detective licensed by the Illinois Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, most process servers are unlicensed, Patterson said.

Process servers are also required to register with the Cook County Sheriff's Department, but that doesn't happen either.

In fact, only one process server has registered with the sheriff's office, according to Patterson.

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