You've Been Served, Thanks to Company's iPhone Program

Consumers who default on credit- card payments may get an opportunity to meet an employee or agent of Scott Levine.

Levine, owner of JJL Process Corp. of West Palm Beach, Fla., operates a legal process serving company and many of his clients are credit card companies.

So consumers who fail to make payments on their credit cards shouldn't be surprised to meet one of his iPhone-carrying workers on their doorstep. The JJL worker will be serving the individual with notice that he is a defendant in a civil lawsuit, often over an unpaid credit card debt.

That's not good news, of course, but it beats the alternative: Not getting served and finding out that you face a default judgment because you didn't respond to the lawsuit.

Levine's company has a copyrighted software application for the iPhone that enables him to use the global positioning system track his process servers and determine that they indeed did go to the homes of defendants. The process servers take a photo of the home to show that they stopped there, and global positioning system backs up that evidence.

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Good Service of Process

In reality, foreclosure starts when the complaint is filed against the homeowner. Then service of process happens, informing Joe Homeowner that a lawsuit is filed against him and with a summons to reply.

If you know a process server is coming after you, do not hide. Process servers will find a way to find you, which may not be convenient to your schedule or dignity. Foreclosures rarely happen at opportune times, but you can control having papers served to you at your home as opposed to while you are out shopping.

Service of process does start the clock, but it is okay for the clock to start. The court needs to get jurisdiction over the dispute and the human. That human is the homeowner. Our justice system is big on notice and opportunity to be heard. Service of process gives the homeowner notice and an invitation to answer.

For the standard complaint or lawsuit, the defendant has twenty calendar days to answer the summons. That is more time than you need to panic, but a reasonable period in which to get legal advice.

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New App Keeps Process Servers in Check

Grand Junction, Colo. (KKCO) - A new phone application will keep court paper servers in check across the globe and the creator lives right here on the western slope.

Local business owner Mike Kingrey created CivilMap.com amid reports nationwide that process servers have not been able to make all their deliveries. Experts say an outdated system has only been feeding into the problem.

Kingrey's CivilMap application will ensure those vital documents will always be signed.. sealed and delivered.

"They do their paperwork electronically and it also electronically verifies everything that transpired during that service," says Kingrey.

The CivilMap application is already getting national recognition with nods from the Amercian Bar Association and positive reviews from the Department of Consumer Affairs.


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New Group Wants Tougher Laws for Assaults to Professional Process Servers

The Illinois Association of Professional Process Servers, newly established, has three goals for the organization: Push for tougher penalties for attacking a process server; encourage mandatory training and certification for process servers; and, ask for uniform laws on the status of process servers.

IAPPS vice president Bill Clutter, who is a private investigator in Springfield, says anyone who is a process server knows that, at times, "It can be a risky occupation." He says one of his agents was nearly choked to death by a man who refused to accept service, and Clutter cites a case in Southern Illinois in which a man poked a server and shot into the air in order to scare her off his property. Clutter says state lawmakers should make it a felony to attack a process server, offering more of a deterrent than the current misdemeanor.


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Case Dropped Against Process Server

The Denver District Attorney's Office dropped a controversial case of criminal mischief filed against a process server who claimed he was a crime victim, not a suspect.

Lynn Kimbrough, a spokesperson for the Denver District Attorney's Office, said a deputy prosecutor "felt the facts of the case didn't support us proving that to a jury" and dismissed the charge on Wednesday.Police and prosecutors had charged Richard Bellizzi after a June 24 incident, which was caught on videotape.

Bellizzi was attempting to serve divorce papers on Englewood anesthesiologist Dr. Oksana Bantley. When the car Bantley was driving stopped on Colorado Boulevard, Bellizzi approached the driver's side and began shouting to Bantley.

Bellizi identified who he was and that he was serving her with divorce documents. Bellizzi was videotaping with one hand, a common measure he says for cases where the subject has tried to avoid being served. He says Bantley had avoided another process server.

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New Questions Being Raised About Court Filings in Foreclosure Cases

The expanding investigation into Florida's foreclosure crisis has turned up a new problem that may involve a number of cases: Individuals hired by law firms to notify struggling homeowners when their foreclosure cases are to be heard in court may have filed faulty or false documents.

Foreclosure defense attorneys and consumer advocates say they have documented a number of foreclosure cases where "process servers" filed questionable paperwork. State investigators who are examining foreclosure documentation problems -- involving law firms that employed "robosigners" to rapidly process claims -- are also taking a close look at process servers, court documents show.

According to lawsuits filed on behalf of homeowners, some individuals appear to have violated the rules of process serving: the personal delivery of legal papers, required by law, notifying people that a foreclosure action has been filed against them. Like "robo-signing" -- the mass signing of foreclosure documents without review by loan servicers -- it's an alleged practice that is putting lenders, and the foreclosure law firms serving them, under fire.

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Parker: Toll gets tricked on Halloween by Process Server

Trick, not treat. Erin Toll answered her doorbell on Halloween armed with treats to dole out to little witches and goblins, but instead she was tricked.

A process server tricked the former director of the state's Division of Real Estate into bagging a subpoena to attend a deposition in an insurance case.

"OMG. I went to the door when the bell rang with the candy in hand, and I was SERVED! Very sneaky. Gotta give the process server credit," Toll wrote on her Facebook page Sunday.

It may have been sneaky, but it's not a tactic that law enforcement officers or private process servers use to track down those who are difficult to find.

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