Countless Consumers Are Paying Off Someone Else’s Debt Because Of Default Judgments

Consumerist – By Ashlee Kieler

Imagine receiving a phone call that 25% of your wages are going to be garnished because of a credit card account opened 14 years earlier that was never paid off. Making things worse, you know you didn’t have a credit card from the bank in question at that time, so it can’t possibly be your debt. This should be an easily remedied error, but not if a court has already granted a default judgment against you, making you responsible for paying back money that you didn’t owe and didn’t find out about until it was too late.

This is not some nightmare academic scenario for law students to think about. It’s a living nightmare for thousands — potentially millions — of Americans, including California resident Christy, who is fighting to set aside a default judgment that allowed a debt buyer to garnish her wages for a debt that doesn’t actually belong to her.

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