How Pretexting Helped Serve Divorce Papers on a Runaway Mother

I Lawfully Pretexted

Despite the recent media hype surrounding the investigative practice of 'pretexting', the fact is that it is a valid and legal technique to locate, catch, and serve legal process onmany people who break the law in avoiding their legal responsibilities. My own experiences prove this out.

In 2004 through 2005, I was a branch manager for online legal process service 1-800-serve-em.com, a firm licensed in Florida to do private investigations in the course of serving process. This company is a middle man between your lawyer, and the process server, and it is typically needed in cases where witnesses or opposing parties are living or hiding in other states or countries. Serve-em skip-traces persons in need of legal service, then hires a local process server where that individual is thought to be located. Generally, the harder they hide, the more difficult it is to serve them with legal papers.

These papers could be lawsuits, divorces, custody filings, restraining orders, subpoenas, eviction notices, and targets range from officers of big corporations to everyday people who have gotten caught up in a legal dispute, to IRS agents. 

You never know what is going to happen the next day, but one thing is certain: the most entertaining and some of the most heartbreaking serves are typically upon the most weasely people. 

I saw doctors hiding from malpractice suits by enlisting in the military in order to be sent over to Iraq (where the Soldiers and Sailors Act would protect them from lawsuits by people they have maimed or killed by their negligence). The day one particular doctor finished his tour and got home was a rewarding day: he got served as soon as he stepped off base, and a little girl who was permanently disabled finally got her day in court to hold that man responsible.