I have tried to have the defendant served by certified mail with failed attempt,I have paid the sheriff's dept. to serve papers with 5 failed attempts.I cannot keep spending money on this civil case yet I want my day in court to collect what is owed to me (just under 1,000.00) how can I bring this before the court when the defendant is too knowledgeable on how to avoid being served? I live in Florida.

You need to hire a private process server to serve the papers. You give the process server all the pertinent information about the person being served such as physical description, make, model, color of vehicle they drive, where they work, where they live, etc. When is the best place to serve the person as well as the best time. The sheriff's dept is not going to give you good service as they don't have to. Whereas a private server will go out of their way to get the person served. As a former paralegal in South Florida I would use private servers and get good results IF I would give the server all the information I had available to me to help them get the person served. Just handing someone a Summons and Complaint and a name and address is not going to cut it with the sheriff's department. It will be money well spent when you use a private process server. I've had private process servers serve defendants at 4AM at their home when they had just gotten home from a party!

Just get another set of papers issued from the Clerk and get a private process server on their behind. You'll get results quicker than the sheriff's office ever will get you. You probably went with the sheriff's office as they were cheaper.

Yes a good process server ( private) I used to do it and seldon failed to find my person