Consumer Debt Collection: How Smartphones are helping debt collectors..

Consumer Debt Collection:  How Smartphones are helping collectors.

Due process is one of the most highly valued constitutional principles within the legal Bible. While it is a guarantee of both the 5th and the 14th Amendment, the doctrine has notoriously been used as a buffer, versus a protection, especially when it comes to the process of service.

Consumer Debt and Technology

Here’s where technology steps in. Whether it be satellites, property photos, or mobile apps, advances in technology are aiding both the server and the served in guaranteeing proper process. Yes, now your Smartphone can (more adeptly) provide evidence of suitable service.In the good ole days, it would be the processor’s word against the served individual’s. Both sides can be incentivized to fudge whether or not proper service occurred. A server might realize after the fact that proper service was not conducted, or might cut corners to get the job done.An individual being served can stall court proceedings by claiming he or she was never served or served improperly. Courts are very clear that improper service, and therein insufficient due process, is a constitutional violation and until the defect is cured, will generally not proceed in the suit.

GPS and Smartphone Capabilities

Nowadays, though, with the advent of GPS and Smartphone capabilities, servers are able to track their steps, find the appropriate addresses, take photos of the property to assure they were in fact at said property, and assure proper policy adherence through other firm-specific mobile applications. While this isn’t a fail-proof system, it’s leaps-and-bounds ahead of the “he-said, she-said” approach utilized less than a decade ago.There will still be issues wherein a server could utilize all of these amenities and still improperly serve a defendant, just as there is, as I understand it, no way to yet guarantee the individual actually receives the document (unless the served amenably decides to pose, wide-grinned, next to his or her summons). However, with increasing documentation of how the service took place, technology is giving collection agencies, and any entity that serves individuals, veritable facts that can be shown to a judge, offering a better presumption of proper service.For those wishing to avoid service, you can thank the late Steve Jobs for making it easier for servers to track you down, serve you, and record the process in its entirety.“Think Different” now takes on a new meaning.

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