No such method error on a method that is public when using getMethod() method

I have a public method defined as the following code,

public int getSerial()
{
    return this.serial;
}

Then I am using java reflection to get the method with the following code,

        Class c = type.getClass();
        try {
            Method m = c.getClass().getMethod("getSerial",null);
        } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (SecurityException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();

However, I keep getting the following error.

java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: java.lang.Class.getSerial()

I am confused as to why this error is happening, I have seen it happen before when a method was private when using the getMethod() method. However, mine is a public method and takes the right parameters, which is null. So I am not too sure why this error keeps happening. Does anyone have any input on to why this error keeps happening when I use the getMethod() method?