A few days ago, my husband was called by a collection agency informing him of a default judgement of over $8,000 which he had no prior knowledge of. The default judgement was 12/2005. He was told that it was for a credit card he had in 1996. He sincerely believes that he was the victim of identity theft. He never signed for a credit card in 1996 or any year. He has no records and the call from the collection agency is the first time he was made aware of this. The court notice was sent 3 years ago to an address where we don't reside , so we had no way of knowing prior to the phone call from the collection agency.

Any suggestions on where to start?

Any idea when this Judgement was made, as it could well be on a barred debt, SOL having elapsed. After all 1996 is 12 years ago!!

Should be a simple case of clearing his name with the court either via SOL or incorrect identity/service.

First make sure though the court that there really is a judgement, guess what collection agencies lie, they cheat, some are just crooks who will pick a person of similar name and try to collect the debt from them if they can't find the real person.

So go to the court and be sure that is a real judgement first before you do anything else.

Also do not admit you owe them anything.

If there is a judgement, several things, first file with the court to have it overturned due to improper service, also look to see if the debt was over the statue of limitation when the judgement was even awarded.

And if it is ID fraud, file a police report on it.