My question involves court procedures for the state of: California
Yesterday, we discovered that a default judgment has been entered against my wife regarding unpaid cc debt. While we don't dispute the debt, this caught us completely off guard.
Facts:
AMEX filed suit for recovery of cc debt in June 2010.
The Proof of Service indicated substituted service. It indicated that service was made to "co-tenant" of my wife, a guy named "John Jones" at the address where we USED to live 6 months prior. We sold that house to someone who apparently has tenants in there. We don't know them, nor have any contact at all. When we moved we filed change of address with post office, our attorneys, and even THIS creditor AMEX. The Proof of Service and Due Diligence certification was completed by the process server and he apparently also mailed copies to the same address where he served the summons. We never received anything at the new address, where we still live today.
Soon after, a default judgment was entered in favor of AMEX, then just recently a writ of execution was granted, the sheriff served on our bank, and took some money from one of our accounts, but not nearly enough to satisfy the debt.
The immediate issue is for us to get that levy suspended by a judge before we put any more money into it through our payroll direct deposits. We probably have everything available to us to prove up this issue. Then, after a "petition or whatever" I would think that the judgment could be vacated, then AMEX would start the process all over again.
I don't see how we were properly served. Honestly, no BS, we didn't know this was going on or we certainly would have answered any summons served upon us.

