An article in the most recent edition of the New York Professional Process Servers Association (NYSPPSA) by Director Joey Knight highlights the impact of the recent rulings and DCA involvement has had on process servers there. The article title “Decimation of an Industry” accurately sums up the staggering number of process servers who have been put out of business by the new requirements.
The following quote shows just how much the server landscape has changed for NYC process servers in the past two years:
“As of September 2011 there were 144 licensed agencies in NYC. There are currently 121 licensed agencies; of those, 56 are newly licensed agencies (within the past year or two). That means 79 agencies are no longer in business.
As of September 2011 there were 1,760 licensed individual process servers in NYC. There are currently 967; of those, 269 are newly licensed (within the past year or two). That means 1,062 process servers gave up their licenses”. That’s a little more than 60%!
NYSPPSA’s president Larry Yellon talks about the issues process servers have faced in the wake of DCA involvement in a latter with Counsel at the Office of New York City Council. Among them involve:
- Agencies with bad credit being able to get the $100,000 bond required and not having the option to get a bond to quality with the city with a “Trust Fund” as individual servers can.
- An extreme increase in fines from the past, with some servers being fined closed to what they make in an entire year.
- The fines faced by servers as a result of inaccurate GPS locations or the inability to even record a GPS location when there is no signal.
- Repetitious recordkeeping caused by the need to have written log books in addition to the logs kept by the newly required third party providers.
In this blog we constantly talk about the need for active state associations, with members who participate and are aware of pending legislation. What has happened in New York should be an indicator of just how important that is. Even though the final outcome has had a serious effect on the industry and servers, it would have been even worse if there hadn’t been considerable financial backing and action on the part of NYSPPSA.
