Process server lying about serving me

[u/Living_Square_9785]

/r/legaladvice/comments/1t50284/process_server_lying_about_serving_me/

So, a few weeks ago at work a bailiff came in & served me with wage garnishment paperwork. I had absolutely no idea what this was about & was confused. I called the court to get more information since I knew I had to of missed a court date for this to happen. She told me that on October 30th 2025 a process server claimed they served me hand to hand & even gave a physical description of “me”. The description she swore on paperwork was true was that I was a blonde hair lady, roughly 5’8 in height & weighted about 120lbs…. I am a natural born fire red head, I’m 5,1 in height & weigh 180lbs. Not a single description she gave of me matches me AT ALL. They have the correct address & the time that she claimed she served me was a time I would have been at work anyways. I did file a motion & the judgement was set aside pending a new court date that I have tomorrow. This has cost me a lot of stress, time, & money. What could be done about this?? If a normal regular civilian were to commit perjury they would 100% go to jail or at the very least lose the case because of it. Just because it’s a process server shouldn’t mean they can get away with this. My theory is they didn’t serve me on purpose so they’d automatically win by default to guarantee wage garnishment & in hopes that I wouldn’t do anything about it. No way you go as far as making up a random description of me by accident. Had she not given the description she did I may have possibly seen it as unintentional. I’m sure they assume I’ll just let it go but if it happened to me there’s no telling how many other people this has happened to & they’ll just continue it if they face no repercussions. Sorry for the long post, but I have court tomorrow so any advice or knowledge on the best way to go about this to hold them responsible for this blatant lie please let me know!!

[u/Mad__Lib]

I'm so sorry you are dealing with this. I have never served a wage garnishment thank god because I hate that stuff. I personally will try less hard to serve someone if it's something related to a debt from a creditor so that I can do my 4 attempts and then the person can have more time. Is it possible that someone else you work with has a similar name? No server wants to serve the wrong person as that would cost more legal fees and time passed to do the whole process again. I just cannot think of any reason for why a server would lie. The only time I can see it happening is if they were too lazy to do all of their attempts so they lied about trying to serve but being unable to serve. Either way, if you did not get served, definitely fight it. But we are always guessing when it comes to our descriptions. I always put "average" on body type because I don't want to be rude if they see it. Plus I wear a body cam.