Hi,

I have a 10,000 AUD credit card debt in Australia while I was leaving the country back in 2006. However, now I need to apply for another visa for another country and I need a police clearance certificate from Australia National Police.

Although this is not a criminal offence, I want to know what will be the outcome of my police clearance?

how does statutory limitation work? its been 7 years since I left the country.

It may be a criminal offence - fraud

In which case you may have an arrest warrant here and yes, that would show.

I doubt the debt would have been written off, and you may even be charged interest on the outstanding balance if and when they are able to identify you and find your location. That could be a debt of over $30k by now.

Once the debt is paid, i guess you may be OK with police clearance but until then it is an offence to steal a banks money. Proceed with caution.

$10k is peanuts. If it was a criminal offence not to pay your credit card on time most of OZ/UK would be in the nick. As such I can't see why you think it could have any bearing on a Police Clearance.

Not sure with regard to police statements, however, debt can be pursued under Foreign Judgements Regulations & the UK is a signatory at 27:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/c...2301/sch1.html

The police may have databases that debt chasing companies may be able to link up to. Just to be clear, I don't know the full facts, just if you apply for a police statement and provide your current contact details things may link up.

You really only have two choices - pay your debt (either in full or make arrangements to pay by installments), or apply for your police clearance and see what it shows.

The OP isn't talking about a late payment, he's talking about a default.

The problem is that the OP left the country with the debt and has made not arrangements or attempt to pay any of it off. Usually if you don't pay the debt off, at least the minimum eachmonth more interest + leate fees are addded, over 7 years, if they have done that, then the debt will have spiralled, so it escalates into a more serious offence, in fact leaving without making any proivisions could easily be classed as fraud.

It's rather satisfying to have proof that there's a bit of a downside to leaving behind considerable debts and swanning off overseas without a care in the world.

Nice to see that someone who did it is getting their comeuppance (or at least a few sleepless nights).

Looks like another of those one-post-wonders

Well at least if someone else is thinking of doing this it might make them think twice.... oh who am I kidding.

There is a difference to not paying and deliberatly leaving behind a debt. In law it revolves around the intent. As he has assumadly never made any attempt to pay it, then he may be seen as committing fraud

I know.

Any examples?

This has come up so many times it's unreal. The sum involved is no where near high enough for the credit card companies to bother spending significant sums skip tracing the perpetrator in another country.

An acquaintance returned to Oz on holiday last year with his wife and 2 children. He also left with an unpaid credit card debt. Had no problems at all getting in or out of the country. Or using his credit cards here.

The card companies just don't care.

I put about $2.5m a year through my CC system. About 6 months ago we had an enquiry online from someone about purchasing an item from us. All went OK (although I was sure it was fraudulent) until I asked to talk to them to verify the card number (I had already processed the order and the funds duly appeared in my account the next day). They told me they were hearing impaired and were also now in Jakarta with their husband who had had an accident while working abroad. Then they asked for shipping to Ghana. I called the fraud line for Westpac and told them what had happened and that clearly the card holder (address in Penrith) had had their card cloned or number stolen. The advice I was given was to just refund the money onto the card as it would be subject to charge back when the fraud was discovered. I pointed out the fraud was already known by me and that they should notify the card owner as undoubtedly there would be other transactions going on. Not interested at all. I was told that the cardholder would find out when the next statement got sent out and that it was up to them to file the necessary reports to get their money back. Unreal.

As I said, the card companies just don't care.

To suggest that credit card companies don't care about fraud or unpaid debt is one of the daftest things I have read in a long time.

Financial services companies like to make money and they certainly would care about anything that prevents them from doing this to the maximum.

My credit card company rings me if I dare to travel overseas and make a purchase or if I try to make a purchase eon line in a foreign currency. They have teams dedicated to detected and preventing fraud.