Just like it says. Doorbell rings and a woman says he’s served (my partner). It’s his co. name, but the complaining party is another company that he’s never worked with, a paving sub-contractor. Processs server just leaves, and does not do the service. Weird. He called the paving contractor he did use on the job in question, and that guy claims ignorance of the situation, and he never heard of the other company. The state has record of this co. as a registered contractor with no contact information. No website, but Manta or somesuch gives us a number, that goes straight to voice mail–“you have reached <complaining co.'s name>, leave a message.”
Any ideas what’s going on here?? General fishing expedition?
Doesn’t by it’s very definition being “served” means they leave you with the actual summons? I’ve never heard of a process server taking the summons with them.
Yeah, methinks some kind of bullshit fishing thing. The really only weird thing is that this job is in another town, and the first he’s done there, and this contractor was from there. When he mentioned who had done the paving (to see if the companies were connected somehow) she said “Oh, I know that company, they’re not connected.” And left.
Again… IANAL
I may be wrong, but I’ve always been under the impression that only the IRS could ‘garnish’ ones wages.
I concur with astro on this.
And another thing, how do you know that this person was an actual ‘process server’? Just because they said, “I’m a process server, you are hereby served.” doesn’t necessarily make it so.
I don’t know where you’re located, but here in Texas ‘processes, summons’ and the like are normally ‘served’ by a LEO. Here in Harris County that job is usually done by the Constables Office. YMMV
I would definitely seek the advice of a professional.
Definitely has my BS-meter pegging out.
In my state, any judgment creditor can garnish wages to satisfy the judgment, and a lot of child support is collected that way. There’s a federal statute that caps the amount that can be garnished per paycheck.
For the OP, I have never heard of a process server not leaving the paperwork with the person served. No idea what is going on there.
If she was really serving (as I think you already suspect) - whether they are connected or not is irrelevant to serving the documents. In most areas - the process server wouldn’t even know any of the facts about the case (unless the read through it when they were bored).
I suspect she was doing some investigatory work, but that is really just a guess. Probably amateur hour or something.
Sounds scammy-ish, but I don’t get the scam. I think she was just lying, but still don’t get why.
Of course, in a few weeks or so it may all make sense
Seriously, I think some buddy of his or the guys at work hired this “process server” and after setting him up with the introductory speech, she was supposed to pull off her blouse and yell “Well you’ve just been served!” But she noticed that his wife and kids were in the living room and figured there was something wrong here, so she just mumbled “Well…uh…you’ve been served” with her clothes on and got out of there.
Was it his birthday or something? Is someone trying to get revenge for a prank he pulled?
A process server doesn’t read the summons out loud or explain it. The complainant was a made up name that just happened to sound like the company he found in the state data base.
scam, bs, joke or not - I would contact your courthouse and see if anything has actually been filed - I would do this over the next couple of weeks to be sure.
It may have been a fishing expedition, it may have been a ‘poorly trained’ process server - and you don’t want to assume it was a joke and miss a deadline.
Unanswered frivoulous suits result in default judgements that will cost you real time and money.
If there is no case number specified, that was not “service” by any stretch of my imagination.
In CA the plaintiff is the only person who CANNOT serve a summons (obvious reasons).
If your local court has the Clerk’s office online, see if you can do a name search - I"m betting there is no case with that name, that they scam everyone who has had paving done.
If this is a licensed contractor, I’d call an attorney - no sane person is going to risk their livelihood by engaging in such a scam.
The lawer will do a take-it-to-court search of current cases, in case your search comes up empty.
Then you sue the paving company for the cost of the lawyer. Of course, they will deny having anything to do with this bizarre “service”. And they just might not - it could be some whacko playing out her fantasy role.
And rememer: anybody can sue anybody anytime
If you do not file a response in the allotted time (30 days, IIRC), they can get a default judgement
Obviously, give the company a day or two to respond before setting a lawyer loose - if they are legit, they will be very concerned that somebody i s using their name like this.
And thanks, we’ll check with the county clerk. Oddly, the paperwork was filed in this county, not the county where the work is nor the county where this other contractor is, and I don’t know what that means, but he says he saw enough of the paperwork to see that. And what process server shows the paperwork to a recipient, and walks away with it.
He did leave a message last nite, so far, no response. He only left a “Call me” message.
No, nothing like that, maybe a prank, but I kind of doubt it.
Oh - is it possible you received a letter from them and figured it was spam and tossed it?
You have no grounds for suit unless you have made a demand and payment has not been made.
And, for a real long shot:
Did she have papers in her hand when the door opened? It may be that she got the wrong address and didn’t noticed until she scanned the Summons to confirm this paper goes to this address - it would be embarrassing to hand somebody another person’s Summons - she would ruin two cases by sending in the forms saying “I served this person on this date”.
