I still have unpaid phone bills from when I studied abroad in Japan. Will their collectors find me in the US? What happens if I ever return to Japan?

What about honoring your obligations? Are you a bum? If not, pay your bills. If so, then what do you care what happens next. You’re just a bum.

@pdworkin Yeah, I suppose that if/when my fortunes look up, then I’ll contact Softbank and KDDI again to see how I can pay them overseas.

KDDI: http://www.kddi.com/english/

Softbank: http://mb.softbank.jp/en/

The military does not like people who do not pay their bills.

This is really kind of deplorable…

How much is “quite a bit” by the way?

Contact them and work out a way to pay off what you owe. If you have any honour, you do not run away from your responsibilities.

no, forget it, unless the bill is linked to your passport, or something traceable, could cause problems on re-entry

@Rachienz With Softbank, about ¥76,500 the last I heard.

With KDDI, somewhere in the neighborhood of ¥5,500.

@avvooooooo If I’m informed that I’ll be transferred to Japan, then I’ll probably spend the remainder of my days on US soil attempting to pay it all off before I get shipped off. (Just in case I hit that legal snag upon landing in Japan.) Until then, I don’t have to tell anyone in the military that I have unpaid bills over there.

@EgaoNoGenki Just like you don’t have to tell them about so many other things? You really are going to be rudely surprised when all the things you thought you’d get away with come back to bite you on the ass. Having almost 900 dollars of unpaid and unmentioned debt, not to mention the other things that you’re not disclosing, is going to set you on the fast track to dishonorable discharge if you do actually get in. The military doesn’t play, is nothing like you think its going to be, and you’re going to be in store for a world of hurt if you persist in trying to make it into your idea of what it should be and what you should be able to get away with.

Pay your bills. Or don’t be surprised if they track you down and you’re in big trouble.

At this point, I would set up a forwarding address anyway. Even if the Japanese government does not forward international mail, it still allows the company to get your address and bill you directly. This shows that you are attempting to act in good faith, as I am sure you intended to do all along. It is the creditor’s obligation to send you a bill; so set up the forwarding address and just wait for it. Don’t sweat it. You won’t be arrested.

I seriously doubt that a Japanese company will report you to the American credit bureaus for two reasons: 1) they have to make an effort to collect from you first, and 2) they don’t have your social security number or other conclusive identifiers (unless, for some reason, you gave these to them). If you don’t have the money to pay, that is very understandable in this economy and will by no means land you in “big trouble” if you have acted in good faith in other respects. Once they make contact, you should ask for an easy payment plan; they can hardly refuse this to you, since to do so would alienate you as a future customer.

If you go back to Japan, take your old phone with you. When you try to restart your service, they will tell you what you have to pay, then pay it or set up a payment plan. That way you get to keep your old number and you prove yourself as a valued customer. This is not a huge amount of money.

People run into complications in their lives and run up phone bills like this all the time, and it is in the company’s interest to work with you. As long as you don’t actively try to defraud the company, your debt remains a civil matter, which means they have to sue you in order to collect—and that sounds like it would cost more than the debt is worth. The military is not likely to hassle you unless the company has an actual judgment against you, especially not if you leave a forwarding address and make and effort to pay when you are back in contact with them.

They will find you if you stay here or go back. I know from experence, I was a collector. But there are laws to protect the debtor (you) its called the fair debt practice act. When I was collecting, if you are represented by a lawyer and u tell them to stop calling and contact your lawyer and provide them with the info they are susupose to leave u alone. If they call u at work you can tell them to stop and they are susupose to. If they don’t ask for their suppervisor and tell them whats up.