NY Attorney General Sues Debt Collector For Failing To Serve Notices

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed a criminal fraud lawsuit against debt collectorAmerican Legal Process for failing to provide debtors with notice that they were being sued. Although an amazing tale, this type of fraud may be more common than most think.

Debt collector fraud

According to a press release from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, www.oag.state.ny.us/, criminal charges have been filed against Long Island-based American Legal Process (“ALP”) and its CEO and President William Singler for “a fraudulent business scheme in which the company allegedly failed to provide proper legal notification to thousands of New Yorkers facing debt-related lawsuits, causing them unknowingly to default and have costly judgments entered against them without the chance to respond or defend themselves.”

Sewer service

Sewer service is a slang term referring to process servers who say they provide service to plaintiffs, but end up throwing the summons in the sewer. Although servers may not literally throw the summons in the sewer, Cuomo’s investigation uncovered a great deal of fraud by ALP, including process servers that claimed to have made process serving attempts:

• in more than one place at the exact same time. In one particular case, a process server claimed to have been at four different addresses at precisely the same moment;
• that would have required him to drive more than 10,000 miles in a single day;
• before they had actually received the summons and complaint from ALP; and
• before the summons and complaint had actually been filed with the appropriate court.

Debtors must receive notice

Collection attorneys will tell you that every debtor being sued by a creditor must receive notice. If you believe that one of your creditors may have engaged in sewer service, contact a New York collection attorney to discuss your situation immediately.