I am 25 and I got a job offer and it requires me to get a TS/SCI clearance but I do have $9,000 in collection. Almost all of them are credit cards which is $5,794 and the age on it is 4 years ago. I didn’t have financial literacy back then and made a lot of mistakes on living beyond my means. I also have $3,109 in collection for a school I attended to but then realized that I couldn’t do the whole virutal classes and find myself just picking up extra shifts and I thought that the company I was working at the time would pay it upfront but that didn’t exactly happened and now it’s on my credit. The age of this collection is 4 months but in reality it’s 4 years but because it’s consistently changing to new collection agency. The past two years I have been in the process of fixing up my credit by first opening up a secured card and maintaing a balance and doing all the right steps but this has been in the back of my mind and would like to know if that would be an issue to grant me a clearance?
Financial reasons are the #1 reason for clearance denials.
If you haven’t attempted to address that old debt or don’t have a plan in place, I’m afraid you will be in an uphill battle.
It is not clear from your post, if you have attempted to repay that debt, or just fix your credit score.
I haven’t made an attempt to pay down that debt. I have finding another route to repair my credit. What if I’m able to pay some off will that help?
Honestly, your chances are not great until you pay that off or can show that you’ve been consistently making payments to it on time, with a solid plan to get rid of it.
Bad credit isn’t an issue in and of itself; having unpaid debts in collections agencies is.
Level 6 FI here; financials are not the number one reason for denial, they’re tied with foreign interests. I interview people daily who have financial issues and the most important things to prove are that you’re currently using better judgment, living well within your financial means, and most importantly that you have made or are currently in the process of reconciling all prior derogatory financial accounts. Contact debtors/creditors and set up payment plans and show proof of each. We are permitted to submit documentation showing that you’re taking these steps and if that’s the only derogatory part of your application, you honestly should be fine. I interviewed somebody last week who’s a pedophile who’s had a clearance for 20 years…