So I have a bad credit score, which I am working on, and I have a previous law violation from my youth. I am 28 years old, prior service, and I want to go back in as an Officer. Almost finished with my Degree (This year).

Is this a lost cause? Am I screwed? I know you can't be an officer without a security clearance. So tell me, what do I do?

Try to get back in. There are people with shaky credit or criminal records with a clearance. I don't think they will have a TS but it's probally a few. But you never know until you try as CPF may be signing off or waiving certain things. Or they may be stringent who knows. But try.


Continue to work on clearing up the issues you have however.

Put in the paperwork. I have shaky credit and a law violation as an adult, and I just got my TS adjudicated last month. The big discriminating factors are relationships with foreigners or "patterns of" shaky credit or law stuff. If you have like a 500 credit score and got arrested once for something stupid, you can still get a clearance.

My goal is to complete law school and go into the JAG corp. So hopefully I can prove myself and get in the door. Thanks for the encouragement guys. I am not going to give up.

quote:

...The big discriminating factors are relationships with foreigners...

Where did you got that from?!?! I have TS and my hole family is "foreigner"...so, i definately have relationships with them, and that didn't gave me any problems when i put my SF 86.

Look at the 09L and most of the 35P's, majority of them are native language speakers, and some of them are from some arabic countries (with family still there), that are not too friendly with US, and ALL of them have TS...so, what you are saying is a BIG NO NO.

quote:

Originally posted by SSG_JD_2183:
Put in the paperwork. I have shaky credit and a law violation as an adult, and I just got my TS adjudicated last month. The big discriminating factors are relationships with foreigners or "patterns of" shaky credit or law stuff. If you have like a 500 credit score and got arrested once for something stupid, you can still get a clearance.

This isn't true at all. LOL

Foreign contacts will be scrutinized more closely but the number one reason that people lose their clearance or have it denied is because of their financial history.

Debt means almost nothing, what concerns CCF is debt that is delinquent. 60, 90, 180 days past due.

So you've got a bad score...run a credit report and find all of your creditors.
Dispute anything that you think may be wrong (or too old, there is a statute of limitations on debt). The onus is on the creditor to prove that you owe the debt, not for you to prove that you don't.

Once you've done that, start contacting creditors and creating payment plans. Start sending payments according to the payment plans and keep every letter and receipt.

Let me clear my point up a little. I didn't mean just having relationships with foreigners is bad. I meant having relationships with foreigners with "questionable" backgrounds. There are a lot of things the CCF will clear. I was just trying to make a point that if he just puts in the paperwork, it'll more than likely be adjudicated positively unless he's a serial murderer, rapist, or bin laden's brother.

I am taking notes as we speak. Thank you all for the suggestions. Any more advice?