Legal Question in Family Law in California

Then you were served. So you must have just ignored the case and allowed your default to be taken. If you had a beef with service, you should have filed a motion to quash service, before your default was taken.

You can file an appeal, but you are not going to win. That's because you don't introduce new evidence on appeal, you merely submit a record of the proceedings that occurred in the trial court. The Court of Appeal is not going to let you go in and say "nanner nanner, I signed it because I received it, but that is not the right name." (Which of course prompts the question, how do you know that is not the right name?)

Roach is right for the wrong reasons. If you signed and returned the Notice and Acknowledgement of Receipt, service is good. The person who signed the notice as the server is no longer relevant. The only point at which the server of the Notice becomes relevant is if you did NOT sign and return it, and they then paid a process server to hand serve you with the summons, and wanted to collect that cost from you regardless of the outcome of the case (which is the penalty for not returning the Notice and Acknowledgement of Receipt). Just as you waive any defects in service of the summons by filing an answer, you waive any defects in the service of the Notice and Acknowledgment of Receipt by signing and returning it.