Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California

Yes.... for a garnishment order there must be a judgment first obtained and to obtain a judgment you must be served with process (given a copy of the summons and complaint personally or served on someone at your home and then a copy mailed). If you look at the court's file you will find a proof of service under penalty of perjury from a process server saying how and when you were supposedly served with process and you will find a judgment by default (a judgment entered because you did not answer the complaint within 30 days of service of process).

You may ask the court to set aside the judgment if you were not served properly. You need a lawyer to do that since it is not easy to prepare the necessary motion to set aside the judgment. If the judgment is set aside then you must file an answer and defend the lawsuit against you. Most likely you will lose if you did not pay for the car and it was repossessed but you can try to settle for less in the process. You must consider the cost of filing the motion to set aside the judgment and then the cost of defending the lawsuit. If it has been more than 6 months since the judgment was entered then setting the default judgment aside so that you can answer the complaint is much more difficult and expensive but not impossible.