Ruining your credit on purpose

CzechRaiser07 · Post by **CzechRaiser07** » September 24th, 2011, 7:59 pm

I've read everywhere that its a huge blunder to burn bridges when your leave your home country. That said I fcking hate it here and do not wish to return permanently even if I dont like where I end up (I'll just go somewhere else). I am self employed via the internet, so I have the luxury of not having to worry about a job abroad. I have some medical bills I wouldnt mind leaving behind here and while I'm at it I might as well run up some credit cards and not pay my lease breaking fee at my apartment. I've also read that none of this will follow you for the most part unless you owe some absurd amount or you are guilty of something criminal. As far as I know there is no criminal consequence for not paying a few bills and after 7 years your credit report gets wiped clean. Can anyone give me some downsides here? All that I can think of is my ability to rent a car when I come back to visit family, and even then I'm not sure thats an issue if I leave a sufficient deposit. Sorry if this has been discussed before, and any other info would be great. Thanks in advance.

Rock · Post by **Rock** » September 24th, 2011, 8:03 pm

CzechRaiser07 wrote:I've read everywhere that its a huge blunder to burn bridges when your leave your home country. That said I fcking hate it here and do not wish to return permanently even if I dont like where I end up (I'll just go somewhere else). I am self employed via the internet, so I have the luxury of not having to worry about a job abroad. I have some medical bills I wouldnt mind leaving behind here and while I'm at it I might as well run up some credit cards and not pay my lease breaking fee at my apartment. I've also read that none of this will follow you for the most part unless you owe some absurd amount or you are guilty of something criminal. As far as I know there is no criminal consequence for not paying a few bills and after 7 years your credit report gets wiped clean. Can anyone give me some downsides here? All that I can think of is my ability to rent a car when I come back to visit family, and even then I'm not sure thats an issue if I leave a sufficient deposit. Sorry if this has been discussed before, and any other info would be great. Thanks in advance.

What would be the total amount of bills you would be leaving unpaid?

CzechRaiser07 · Post by **CzechRaiser07** » September 24th, 2011, 8:39 pm

Medical bills are ~2k, my credit card is currently at ~3k with 5k max, and my lease breaking fee is about 1600$. It is my understanding that you will not be sued in international court for amounts even as high as 15-20k. I dont plan on going nuts with this, but I sure would like to avoid having to pay off 5-6k of stuff I dont have to.

Rock · Post by **Rock** » September 24th, 2011, 8:51 pm

CzechRaiser07 wrote:Medical bills are ~2k, my credit card is currently at ~3k with 5k max, and my lease breaking fee is about 1600$. It is my understanding that you will not be sued in international court for amounts even as high as 15-20k. I dont plan on going nuts with this, but I sure would like to avoid having to pay off 5-6k of stuff I dont have to.

IMO, its foolish to destroy your credit for just a few thousand USD. Low cost credit is a valuable financial resource available to Americans who build up a good rating. You don't have to live in USA to use it. Just continue using your American credit cards and make sure you pay on time. At some stage, you may find a great real estate investment opportunity in States for which a strong credit score would help tremendously. Again, that would not lock you into living there. The world citizen may live in one country, bank in another, work in a third (remotely via Internet), and borrow money from a fourth. And make sure you stay current with US reporting and tax requirements cus they sometimes destroy people who don't.

CzechRaiser07 · Post by **CzechRaiser07** » September 24th, 2011, 9:18 pm

I think you are right rock. I dont really see any foreseeable issues with skipping out on my bills, but there is probably a very good chance in the future I will wish I had paid for whatever reason.

NorthAmericanguy · September 25th, 2011, 12:56 pm

Talk to the hospital and see if you qualify for some type of aid or if they have a program that can pay for a portion of the bill.

eurobrat · Post by **eurobrat** » September 25th, 2011, 1:18 pm

Post by **fschmidt** » September 25th, 2011, 4:06 pm

I ruined my credit rating when I was young and poor and had an accident (a car ran into me when I was riding a bicycle) and couldn't pay my medical bills. In my opinion, getting bad credit was one of the best things I ever did. I no longer cared about paying unjustified bills. When called about unjustified bills, I would tell them that I have bad credit anyway, so I'm not paying and they can go to hell. I have had bad credit for 24 years now and I have never regretted it.

CzechRaiser07 · Post by **CzechRaiser07** » September 25th, 2011, 5:01 pm

Schmidt, how exactly do you get around a credit check when getting a place to live or buying a car?

Also, can I really just call up my debtors and say ill give half in cash and they will snap accept? Am I supposed to make an offer myself or ask them how much they will take off if I pay in cash now?

Post by **fschmidt** » September 25th, 2011, 6:59 pm

CzechRaiser07 wrote:Schmidt, how exactly do you get around a credit check when getting a place to live or buying a car?

I rented until I could pay cash for a house. When buying a car, I negotiated and signed. Then they wanted to raise the price based on poor credit. I told them to take it or leave it, and they wanted the sale, so they stuck with the deal in spite of my credit.

Adama · Post by **Adama** » September 25th, 2011, 9:13 pm

I just worry for when the North American Union connects with the European Union, the Asian Union and the South American Union. This may be 20 to 50 years away though. It may catch up eventually though. I have some pretty hefty student loan debt which can not be discharged in bankruptcy or even after any length of time and it is quite burdensome. So it will always be there.

Actually the different regional unions don't even necessarily have to connect. The banks just have to convince the politicians that they want complete control of movement by tracking down Americans who have left, not unlike the use of INTERPOL for FBI's most wanted and serial murderers. All brought to you for our protection, of course!

NorthAmericanguy · September 26th, 2011, 1:18 pm

CzechRaiser07 wrote:Schmidt, how exactly do you get around a credit check when getting a place to live or buying a car?

Also, can I really just call up my debtors and say ill give half in cash and they will snap accept? Am I supposed to make an offer myself or ask them how much they will take off if I pay in cash now?

I'm in the same boat as fschmidt, when I first went to collage I screwed up my credit. I did so because I learned from my mom how to bounce checks and so forth. I then got more into a jam because I tried weed for the first time (to cope with a relative death and finding out a girl I was with cheated on me at the same time) and landed in the hospital for a panic attack. I had no money to pay so even though they did help lower the bill I was stuck with 400 bucks for a 10 minute ambulance ride.

The thing is, just like fschmidt said, I'm glad it happened because it prevented me from getting a credit card or some kind of store credit card which can easily spiral out of control.

Anyhow, with bad credit you quickly realize that cash is king, and that the deals to be had are really the places that don't do credit checks. For example, with cars, the BEST deal you're going to get is buying from a private party unless you know a good auto auction place, or have a buddy with a dealers license who can get you in a dealer auction. People who buy new/used cars from the dealer making payments for the car over time are fools so who cares that they had good credit to buy a car when they still got ripped off from the overall deal anyway?!

As far as a place to stay, apartments in my opinion are rip offs and are too controlling/rigid. I have found that the best deals are your local paper. Just look for, "housing for rent" and space from a rooms all the way to a house will be available. It depends, some people do credit checks, and others don't because they don't go by that criteria or because they are desperate to rent out their property for rental income. Either way, when you're cool with the landlord they will give you time to pay when you're late, or might even lower the rent.

CzechRaiser07 · Post by **CzechRaiser07** » September 26th, 2011, 5:06 pm

Well NorthAmerican, from what you said there is very little reason for me not to skip out on a few thousand $$ in bills. You can def make the argument that its not worth ruining your credit for a few thousand bucks, but in my unique case I'm starting to disagree.

First off, I play online poker for a living so no bank would give me a loan for a house anyway regardless of how much my past years income tax returns say. Even if I do ever buy a house in the USA, it wont be for another 10+ years minimum in which case my credit will be expunged either way.

I'm really having trouble coming up with future situations that would really screw me over and wish I hadnt skipped out on my bills. It seems the only things you need credit for are car and home loans, so with those being a non issue - whats the downside?

Ruining your credit on purpose

Ruining your credit on purpose

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