Expert: Eric Potts - 7/7/2010

Question
Growing up I have always had problems with good credit, early on it was I did not have enough credit and now at the age of 30, I have horrible credit. I have been married for 8 years and I have a daughter that is 12, she used to get sick a lot, but now she is fine, then my wife has had 3 surgeries and is in pain every day.  And here recently I had to have 2 foot surgeries but I was off for 3 months and then lead to Best Buy finding a reason to lay me off. And before Best Buy I was a manager at Circuit City and when they went under I lost a lot of money. I have had to give my house back to the bank, and I am having troubles keeping up with my car payments, also some credit cards and small loans I have defaulted on But in efforts to find a better life for me and my family I enrolled in school, I am working on my criminal justice degree. All A’s and B’s so far (High B’s).  I want to be a probation officer when I graduate, but also become a police officer after 2 years of school so I will be able to see both sides of the fence. I am looking at filing bankruptcy just to wipe my credit clean, but will a bankruptcy prevent me from becoming a police officer or even a probation officer?

Thank you in advance
Beau

Answer
Beau,

Unfortunately bad credit will effect your chances of becoming a police officer if your credit is still poor at the time you are going through the hiring process. Police Departments understand people run into problems in their lives and if you've had some credit issues and corrected them and got your credit up to a good score you should have no problems. If, however, you display a constant lack of self discipline and are constantly in financial hot water you probably won't make it past the initial background investigation. Work on getting your credit squared away and keeping it there and you should have better luck.