ID Theft

How do I fight a wage garnsihment, if the case involves Identity Theft?

I was involved in a lot of ID therft, I reported it on my credit report (disputed it), and they just updated it and didnt remove it. Well now the company took me to court, without my knowledge, and are trying to garnish my check. I knew nothing about the court date, I did not receive a summons or anything. I only found out about it when they mailed this letter to my house, just informing me that they were going to be garnishing my check for $3900!!! Now they say that I have to talk to the judge about overturning it, and I have the burden of proving its not mine. They also asked why didnt I show up to court, and I told them because I didnt receive any information on a COURT DATE!!!! I have been battling this ID theft stuff since I was 18, items were on my report as early as my age of 15!!!!!!! I am just tired of this. They well not give me any information, tell me when the account was opened, who opened it, or anything. They just say that it has already been judged on. I need HELP!!!!!

Public Comments

1. Hire an attorney, stat.
2. well they should have sent a certified letter where you would have to sign for it (the court date) and then once you found out about it you should have called the court and spoke with a public defender or official ,And you do need to get a lawyer to prevent further problems .also you might want to look into getting a new social security number I'm not sure on the price call and ask the Social Security Administration see if they will help
3. Okay I know it has you upset - I'm upset for you but its a creditor and a lot of times they act like total arse's and say things to get you heated up. For starters found out if your state allows wage garnishment. The State of Texas only allows wage garnishment for irs, student loans and child support payments. Credit accounts regardless of the amount does not count. Your state might be the same. Creditors wil often threaten wage garnishment even when they don't have the power to do so. Do you have an attorney? If so contact them asap. If not, check with your city to see if they have a volunteer legal counsel. Another option - if you're working full time your company should have an Employee Assistance Program. Typically this also includes legal service - get them on the phone asap and explain the situation. And don't rule out contacting the court. Get them on the phone and explain the situation that you were a victim of identity theft and this alleged garnishment is unjustifed since the debt is not yours. Be sure to advise them the company never contacted you about a court date - but has suddenly resurfaced to advise of a 'garnishment'. Ask questions of the court on what steps you need to perform to fight this and/or delay the garnishment. Hopefully you still have all of your paperwork (i.e. police report, credit reports etc) depicting the identify theft - be prepared to forward this asap to the courts. And one you're done with this round - consider checking into new identification numbers (i.e. driver license, id's, and social security #). Some states specify they won't change any id's until you have prove the info has been misused - well you have the proof so march into the offices and tell them to give you new info so you can avoid this
4. It would be best to hire an attorney who specializes in Identity theft. ID theft is a complicated matter as I'm sure you've been familiar with. You say you disputed your credit report but was it 'resolved' when it was updated. They do not remove things from your credit, they do however make updates showing that it is 'paid', 'discharged', 'disputed', 'released', 'settle', etc. Once you have 'disputed' the information on your credit report and investigation is done. During the investigation they go back to the credit grantor who supplied the source of information to review that information and report back either reporting that the information is accurate as it appears, or they will give corrected information to update the report. If ID Theft is not reported to the credit grantor, the information will not be changed on your actual report. You must find out which company is trying to garnish your wages. If it is a collection agency you must find out which company hired them to collect. You'll need the amount 'origianlly' being charged against you and the product or service redered for that amount. You have to establish how it was paid for, which credit card. Ask questions like the time, date and exact place of purchase. Also, who signed for it. The dispute must be with the credit service or bank that allowed the purchase. They also have a seperate investigation team. It's a lot of leg work, a lawyer really helps and you can get a free consultation from most. Get all your questions together and have them ready to ask the lawyer during that free initial visit. This will help. Questions I would ask the lawyer are about fighting the wage garnishment and judgement made without your knowlege. Here is a site with a lot of Q&A's that might help. Good Luck! http://wiki.answers.com/Q/FAQ/2319 Always be aware of ID Theft and what you can do to help prevent it. Federal Trade Commission has a site set up to give you help. It's tells you what you can do in the event of ID Theft, the laws pertaining to ID Theft, helpful information and much more. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/
5. Here is the problem you are about to face.... When a collection agent sues you, they can't even get into court until you have been served with the summons/complaint. The hard part is finding you to serve. Every state has differant laws on how court papers are served. Some are quite strict, while others make it very easy for the creditor so serve them. Lets take Washington for example. The process server can show up at the address and hand it to anybody of appropriate age. It doesn't even have to be the person named on the summons, just deliver it to anyone! So what happens if the address on the summons is no longer your resident address? You moved out, and this is the "last known address" they have. Oh well! The process server got lazy and didn't verify anything. He got his money, you got served, and now you are in big trouble. On the other hand, in my state of Michigan you must be served personally, or by certified mail/return receipt. If the process server can not find you, he must go back to court and file a statement claiming that he made a "dilligent attempt" to locate you, and request an "alternate service method". This usually means taping it to your door, or sending it by regular mail. But the server must show the judge that he is "reasonably certain" that you live there, and supply some sort of evidence. Sometimes even posting it in the newspaper will work. If it is later determined that the address they had was wrong, the process server is going to get into a whole lot of trouble. The point here is that you are now left with a battle. In order to get the judgment overturned, you must first prove that the process server did not attempt to locate you, or in fact did not serve you properly. If the judge believes you were notified he won't even listen to any further argument. In many cases, he is going to strongly side with the process server, so you better have a very good argument. His thoughts are that you had an opportunity to be in court and argue your side, and you didn't do it. You must now prove that you were not allowed that opportunity. Next, you must show the judge that if a new trial were held, you would have a very good chance of winning. That means you must prove you are innocent of these charges, and prove you do not owe the money. Yup, it's hard to prove a negative, but that's how the law is. The burdon of proof is now on you. For this reason, you may need to consult an attorney to help you out with this. First, you need to do some research on your own. Find out what the exact law says regarding process serving, and then go to the courthouse and get a copy of the file for your case. Look at the forms the process server filed to see exactly how you were served, and see if they followed the law and/or did a "dilligent search" for you. If you can't pass this test you are not going to get anywhere. I do process serving here in Michigan and understand the laws in the US...if you need advice contact me. But you really need to find a lawyer, and that may end up costing you $1000. One last note....collection agents are very good at doing this. They pay process servers to deliver, and they don't care if you get it or not. If the process server wants more business, they will lie to get it. Several large collection agencies recently got hit hard with huge fines for this, and some process servers went to jail for filing false services. If you find that this happened to you, fight it!