Why you should only use a NAPPS member
for all of your serves in Colorado
As of this writing, Colorado is still an unregulated state as far as the process serving field goes. Some servers in other states refer to it as still being the “wild west” of the process service field. This has some advantages and some disadvantages.
There are all kinds of service companies and all kinds of people operating here.
Many of the larger companies offer you the selling point that they “cover the entire state”, rather than just a small area. But how do they do that?
No one could possibly cover the entire state all by themselves, so they have to hire others. They sub-contract.
As experienced as they may be, you’re not just hiring the owners of the company, you’re hiring anyone they may sub-contract your work to.
Being Colorado is an unregulated state so far, some of them are hiring people who are working “day jobs” and doing process serving for some part time money on the side. These people can sometimes make as little as minimum wage per hour, after considering self-employment taxes and using their own vehicles and gas.
The larger companies often promise them that they can make good money at this work, and it is possible, but it’s more likely with the cut-throat environment that presently exists in the state, that they may only make that really good money for a few hours a month, or a year.
So some of those big companies are on the level of training schools for process servers, with constant turnover. They may have training classes for new servers every two or three weeks.
We’ve heard first-hand about some pretty dicey things going on with the weekend server non-professionals. At one company, the server who was doing the largest number of serves per week, was suddenly fired. They said she was claiming that she was serving documents in one mountain town and then serving documents in another, 15 minutes later, only the two towns were 75 miles apart. They had to go back and check over every bit of work that she ever did for them and it may have involved court cases being thrown out because of it and judgements overturned. Attorneys having to put in more work for no more fees? What a Pandora’s Box, what a potential nightmare.
She was reportedly serving a huge number of documents for them every week, even getting bonuses because of her numbers, but the next thing we heard, they were firing her and might even be prosecuting her for perjury and suing her for fraud for taking their money for work that wasn’t done. After all, these are legal affadavits that we file as Returns of Service, under oath. What she was accused of doing, is known in the industry as “sewer serving”, as in dropping the documents in a sewer somewhere.
We’ve heard of other servers in other states who had done similar things. One had fraudulently charged almost half a million dollars over a few year period until they were caught, then they were prosecuted serially for many, many counts of perjury, each holding a potential penalty of up to a year in prison. There was a recent case in New York, of a large company accused of doing such things.
What was happening to all those documents she claimed to be serving? Who knows? Were they being tossed in a dumpster or a ditch somewhere? Shredded?
Apparently some of these trainee part-timers don’t understand the consequences of their actions, even when told in advance! Some of them receive an hour training class and are sent out to serve papers. They could even receive no training, after all there are no requirements.
Not only might they be charged with perjury, but what about the people they’re serving? What if they claim they served a summons for debt collection on someone, and they claim that they later served a contempt citation on them, because they never showed up in court for the first summons. The next thing the servee knows, they have a warrant out for their arrest. What an impact that can make on peoples’ lives.
A stressed-out grandmother called us a few months back. Her son was in Iraq in the army and was coming home a week from then, to get married. They wanted his favorite nephew to be ring bearer at the wedding. But the grandmother on the other side of a divorce had custody of the boy and was saying “no”. So she’d gotten a temporary parental change of custody order from the court, just so the boy could attend and be ring bearer. But the first server she’d given it to, had kept it for three weeks and only made one attempt to serve it. They had seen the woman walking into the house, had knocked on the door and no one had answered, so they left.
She told me the grandmother would be evasive and would likely not answer the door.
We took her serve then, on a rush basis, and I served it that night. It involved going back there three times until the woman was home at around 10:45 PM, then knocking on her door and ringing the bell until she finally called the police. She wouldn’t even answer the door from inside, without opening it. But when the police arrived, I identified myself as a process server and she had to open the door for them, being she’d called them, and I was able to serve her.
Some of my colleagues and I were also recently shocked to discover that even convicted felons are presently allowed to serve legal documents from the courts here in Colorado. There was this case in the Denver Post awhile back: “State paper server is a sex offender ”
Besides the issue of coming in proximity of children, we process servers often have access to some serious investigational tools, as well as the Social Security numbers of the people we serve. It’s serious work and we’re considered the legal equivalents of officers of the courts, and as having the same legal authority as the sheriff, to serve these important documents that can have such a profound impact on peoples’ lives. After all, we’re serving people with the due process of the law guaranteed by our Constitution.
So I’d suggest to you that the best way for you to ensure that your serious work is taken seriously, is to hire a NAPPS member for all of your work in Colorado. This organization requires one year of experience to join, and they do not accept members who have been convicted of felonies or crimes of moral terpitude. Members are also responsible for maintaining good standing in the organization with good and ethical conduct. So being Colorado is still unregulated, just about the only way to ensure that you’re hiring someone who has experience, will take the work seriously and hasn’t been convicted of a serious crime, is to hire a NAPPS member.
We feel this is an honorable profession. Our goal was to become professionals and make a career out of it. We spent time in the “school of hard knocks” learning this, and then joined NAPPS.
Please think about all of this and choose Colorado Process Servers!
Thank you for your business.
CALL US!: 1-800-691-6219
