Hi everyone,

I have recently arrived here on a CR1 visa and have obtained by conditional green card valid for 2 years. Before leaving my home country i tied up as many loose ends as i could ie: bills etc and had my mail forwarded to a friend for 3 months. I also left that friend with some cash which she was supposed to pay any outstanding accounts with and send all the other accounts over to me here so that i could finalise them (which she hasnt done)

However, two weeks ago i received an email from her indicating that some bills she had for me hadnt been paid and that she needed to speak to me urgently. I have tried to contact her and have sent repeated emails to her but she has not responded.

I am now getting really worried that whatever debts she hasnt paid may have been placed into the hands of the court system.

I am stressing out severely as not only do i not want court actions against my name in my home country but i am paranoid that when i file for the conditional status of my green card to be removed that the INS may find out about this.

Can anyone give me some advice so that i can get some sleep?!!

Thanks

sequoyah,

I've been overseas for almost a year now and have gone through some similar patches with my Home Secretary (the person I placed in charge of my home duties). Sometimes she's been the one gone missing for days/weeks, sometimes it's been me. There've been a variety of reasons, sometimes just life happening, sometimes computer problems.

You don't say how you've tried getting in touch with her, but I encourage you to pick up the phone, trying her at home and then at work. Share your fears with her, which might light a fire under her.

As to your fears, you don't say how long these things have gone unattended, but it's likely that they're not in external collection if it's only been a few months. There's still time to get back on track.

Also, INS won't be concerned with your foreign problems.

Do you have a list of the outstanding debts? I've been able to take care of virtually *everything* online, including access to accounts, online payments and as a last-ditch, contact info for the correct parties so I can correspond about my accounts.

In fact, we're going through a lot of it right now as we set things up for our re-entry to the States.

Don't stress, these things are but details to deal with. If you have the brains to get your CR-1, you can do anything!

Thanks 'Meauxna' for your reply.

I have tried numerous methods of getting in touch with my 'friend' but to no avail. She is never home to answer my calls and doesnt return either my email or phone messages.I have no idea what money could be outstanding but as i said before i am scared that they could end up in court with a summons issued for me.

I am not intending on returning to my country of origin but as i said before my overriding concern is that this could somehow affect my conditional status next year.

I guess i should just remember that famous quote......." Even the best laid plans are apt to go astray"!

By the way, what are external collections and how do they work?

Well, it *is* strange that you can't reach her at all. Have you tried calling her mom? Moms almost always know where you are

Again, I would try to reconstruct a list of who you think you owe money to and start working on reaching them yourself. I see no need to return to your original country to deal with it.

Also, there have been several posts in the past year dealing with the question of foreign debt. It will have no impact on your adjustment. Search with google groups.

Re: external collection. Typically a company tries to collect internally, from a department within their organization. If that fails, they will often sell the debt to a collection agency, which is what I call external collection. With US debt, this is where you will have the most negative effect on your credit rating, but it is still resolvable.

See what you can get done on your own from the States using phone/internet and post. Good Luck!