Hi everyone, I have a quick question about debt in a foreign country for my Sf-86 application.
I lived in Canada for 5-6 years when I was doing my grad school and I had bank accounts, credit cards and line of credit.
I had two accounts there.
Account one was forcefully closed by the bank and I had credit cards and line of credit.
they mentioned they thought my account had posed risks (never gave me a reason)
But I had at the time 6000 CAD debt in my line of credit. The bank sent the debt to an American debt collection agency and I ignore their messages. I finally settled the debt in June 2020 directly with the bank and I have the letter from the bank that states, I have settled the debt.
Account two is closed and I do not remember when I opened it and closed it! I did not keep any record of account two, since I never thought it will be necessary.
I do not have any debt in US. My question is how bad is it that the bank closed the accounts?
And should I disclose this information? or should I just provide the information about paying the debt?
I appreciate if you can help me with as much details as possible
You will have to list the foreign financial accounts under the foreign financial accounts question. I don’t think the financial issue questions are limited to US accounts. I would list them if they meet the time criteria and then just be ready to discuss during the interview.
In addition to what @Cal said I would add that you need to be prepared to show those letters about the settled debt and provide whatever details you can. It sounds like something that will show up when they do a credit check and the investigator will no doubt have some questions that need to be answered.
Doesn’t sound like any of this is a big deal but it will probably need to be discussed (and documented) to some degree, including that other “account two” as I believe that Canadian banks are kinda sorta in the same databases and stuff as US banks so it might show up if they run a check (but I am not sure).
Thank you @sbusquirrel and @Cal for your response. The Canadian credit score database system is independent of US credit database. That I am certain. It doesn’t show/reflect in my US credit score at all. I have the letters from collection agency and I have the final letter from the bank that they said I settled the account in full and it is closed. There are two problems though: for this debt I settled it last year after 4 years! and in the initial letter it says they closed my accounts because they felt it imposed a risk! I am worried about this language!
for account number two, I have no record unfortunately! Honestly I never though I have to answer to anyone for opening and closing accounts so I threw out the documents. All I remember is the name of the Bank and estimate dates of opening and closing (which was early 2010 to around 2012-2013)!