question re: credit

[s.cutrufello]

Thanks again for the responses to all of my questions, and helping so much along the way.

Let's just say my credit is 'less than stellar.' College loans are eating me alive since my income is very low.

How will this effect me -if at all- if(when) i move to Italy? would the consequences be the same in any other EU nation?

[Tiffany]

Um - you will have absolutely no credit when you go to another country. This is true even if you are going to Canada. All countries have their own systems for this sort of thing.

So if the question is: how will this affect my borrowing power? It won't. Italy (so says my Italian husband) doesn't even have a credit rating system that he knows of. He has been known to be wrong though

Otherwise, if your question is whether the debt will follow you, the answer is yes. The US government is going to want its money back eventually.

[s.cutrufello]

more the first question than the second. thanks for the reply

[matta]

Some of my college friends did something similar - took out large amounts of credit card debt and then went home. A couple of them mentioned that when they tried to get a loan in Europe after the fact, the banks noticed that they went to college in the US, checked their US credit score, and refused the loan.

This was in Greece and France. So I guess the loans do not technically follow you as they would in the US, but they still impact your credit.

Then again, those were loans owned to private banks in the US. Your case involves owing money to the US government, so YMMV.

[Tiffany]

Ah credit card debt is a little different than student loan debt, but good point. Things are going more global and cc companies are no exception. I wonder what they used to check their credit card score?

I know when my husband came over he had to start from scratch in the US - despite the fact that he already had Italian credit cards, he had to apply for new ones. Only Discover would give him a card under their student program. But then since there is no such thing as a credit rating in Italy, they couldn't check that.