YOU ARE BEING SUED!

We recently were the target of a scam that has been around for a while but is making a recurrent comeback these days. It begins with what appears to be a phone call from a legal process server who informs you that he or she is trying to serve you a legal document. Below is a recap of our own experience and I am recounting it here as a warning to NOT be taken in by this very real and somewhat anxiety inducing scenario. Fortunately, we were not successfully scammed (we played it 'right' by not taking the bait, but we also do not answer the phone when it rings unless we know who the caller is...a valuable safety measure that has paid off time & time again, over the past several years). But read on...

Two days ago, I received a phone call on our residence land-line phone. Since we do not answer the phone unless we know who is calling, our telephone recorder took the call, which was from a young woman ostensibly named Victoria Daniels. She stated she was a 'process courier for XXX County’ (CA) and that she had documents 'associated with (my) name and Social Security Account' that required my signature. She went on to say that she would visit my place of employment and residence to obtain my signature and that I needed to have one photo-ID available...'preferably (my) CA driver's license'. She also said that if I did not sign the alleged document, or failed to comply with her request, this response would be relayed to the 'court' as a refusal to cooperate; I would therefore 'miss (my) court date' (what ‘court date’?) and the proceedings would continue adversely in my absence (so she stated). She advised me that if she had to come to my place of employment that this would require a countersign on the part of a supervisor or chief of security. Finally, she stated that if I had any questions about his matter, I should call a number she left (supposedly of the originating entity...the call originated in Appleton, Wisconsin, in the 866 area-code) and told me to refer to (my) supposed case number (which was CV292XXX). Finally, she informed that she would stop by my work place and residence between 3 - 5 PM to collect my signature and advised me to 'plan accordingly'. This young woman was moderately articulate, had good elocution and sounded quite professional in her delivery of all this information (no amateur stuff). The very next day (again at the exact same time of the previous day's call, about 6:46 AM PST), she left another message on our recorder, essentially repeating the previous day's 'warning', but ended by saying this is 'your final notification' in a somewhat dire tone.

Naturally, this was all quite sobering to have drop out of the sky unexpectedly and being poorly informed about factual process serving mandates & legal protocols in California (as almost anyone except an attorney would be), I was initially a bit shaken by it. I found myself immediately starting to reflect on who would want to sue me or initiate a legal action against me and in this I’m sure I am no exception, since any reputable, law-abiding individual with a sense of social responsibility would naturally be so inclined to hurriedly examine their past to see if there were any erstwhile skeletons in their particular closet! Thus, a germ of mild paranoia began to build in my head, which is all part of the plan, of course, since no normal individual anticipates legal proceedings with any enthusiasm whatsoever. The potential psychological pressures generated by a call of this nature are both subtle and tremendous and the human brain’s amygdala quickly shifts into hyperdrive!

I did have some misgivings about the legitimacy of this, however, and I quickly began to do some on-line research about process serving rules and regulations in California. Using the search-line ‘process serving scams’, I quickly stumbled across another experience cited by a woman who was exposed to almost exactly the same sort of call we had received. In fact, the message was almost identical to the we had received and in her case the 'drop-by' time given by the caller was also specified as between 3 - 5 PM! This strongly reinforced my feeling that my own caller was a scammer and not a legitimate legal process server. That said, it certainly did little to dispel the slight, gnawing anxieties that had already been catalyzed by this call.

Since we did not pick the phone up and/or talk to the caller or contact the number she suggested we call with ‘our questions’, we decided to wait and see if anyone came by as promised. The two-hour window came and went, with no visits by this individual, so we can only surmise that the scam relied upon us panicking and calling the number she had left, which would have then presumably exposed us to an offer by the scammers to somehow ameliorate the 'process' if we submitted a certain amount of money to them (that’s the usual MO with these types of scams, after all). Since it did not get that far, we had nothing to fear as the erstwhile 'visit' utterly failed to materialise. Of course, anyone who is brazen enough to actually show up at one’s doorstep after making a call like this would have to have cojones of pure brass (if you’ll pardon the inept gender simile) but at the time this occurs you are still not thinking calmly or logically to analyse things with perfect cogency.

Talking this over yesterday with friends who are attorneys, I was bemused to learn that this sort of scam, although not entirely new, is occurring more and more frequently at the present time (2018). Thanks to my own encounter with this particular scam, I can testify to the sobering nature of an experience like this, since we are law-abiding citizens who live responsibly and take legal matters fairly seriously.

Sad to say, we live in an age in which science and technology have brought into being entirely new ways to dupe, hoodwink, deceive and fool otherwise reasonably intelligent people into believing low-life scumbags like this who prey on others’ gullibilities and susceptibilities. It is a sad fact of basic human behavior that the perversely amoral among us remorselessly prey on those who are weaker and less able to defend themselves and it has been that way from the dawn of civilization. The only thing that changes and/or is perhaps new in this process are the methods used to predate in this despicable manner.

What is particularly sad is that the victims of this sort of scam are usually older, most likely our so-called ‘seniors’, who may not be as well aware of the latest deceits and tricks used by scammers…or are perhaps affected by dementia or deteriorating mental acuity problems. In short, the very sort of people we should respect and hold in higher regard for having survived the bumpy and tragedy-strewn path of life to reach their seniority. In ancient and primitive societies elders are according an automatic profound regard for their ‘wisdom’ acquired with age. Of course, in a society like that of America’s, older people, who have been so intensely socialized by commercial/marketing forces in our capitalistic, are more often rather stupid or at least have had their critical thinking processes so sorely dulled by American-style consumerism and infortainment fantasies that they may have reached old age with the same rather uncritical mind-set most Americans are beset with these days. In other words, the phrase ‘wisdom of old age’ is now almost an oxymoron. All the more reason, of course, why more stringent measures should be taken by our state and regional governments to protect people (and especially seniors) from these predatory dip-sh*t cretins who criminally take advantage of their vulnerabilities.

This experience I cite here was actually a rather new one for me. I am quite familiar with a great many of the usual scams, hacks and hoaxes we are recurrently and unrelentingly beset with in our modern ‘electronic media age’ and I certainly try to keep abreast of all the developing trends in this department, but I must admit I’ve never, ever encountered this type of ‘legal process serving’ scam before and it definitely gave me considerable pause for reflection.

I am posting this backstory, therefore, as a warning to others who may also find themselves similarly targeted by scammers that we all need to constantly be on our guard and NOT be taken in by lame (but realistic sounding) hoaxes like this, no matter how 'genuine' they seem to be. As long as our society is riddled with scumbags like these pathetic specimens of misanthropic humanity who perpetrate this sort of scam, we need to constantly maintain a healthy skepticism about the real possibility of dishonesty in just about every walk of life. After all, as experience has proven over and over, if something seems vaguely like a scam, it probably is! Don't we live in a wonderful age?

One final note. Back in the day, movies and television conveyed the impression to viewers that a legal process server would always try to surprise the object of his process serving attempts. Vividly dramatic scenes of a process server tossing a summons at a person in order to ‘deliver’ it are all doubtless fixed in our minds from such recollections. However, it should be noted that legal processes such as this (summons, notification of a law suit, legal writs, etc.) may be legally delivered in a number of different ways and in some cases even to a person who may be a family member or a close friend of the intended recipient. A signature is NOT required, nor is the recipient required to show any personal identification (all a server may request is the person’s name, given verbally). Further, it is absolutely illegal to demand documentation of a person’s identification (such as a driver’s license, a photo-ID, passport, SSAN, etc.) and anyone requesting such items is almost certainly a scammer. Finally, NEVER sign any document of any kind unless you are absolutely certain about what the document is and, further, whether it pertains to you or anything you may be responsible for.

Given the increasing sophistication of these scams and the cleverness of individuals perpetrating them these days, you can never be too careful. A good friend of mine who specializes in consumer protection law confided in me that any time there is reasonable doubt as to the veracity of a caller, it is almost 100% certain that the call is illegitimate and/or illegal. He said it is always prudent to assume that fact to be true, when in any doubt whatsoever.

Hopefully, you will never experience something like this, but given the fact that the American legal system of ‘justice’ (irony, irony) seems to protect the guilty far more than the innocent, it pays to develop a basic distrust of just about anything that can’t be absolutely proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. How to resolve this need with good old ‘Christian’ good will?

As a famous old Russian proverb puts it: “Trust, but always verify!” Da, Tovarich! ,