Bad credit and/or debt as a teacher?

Would bad credit and/or debt make a Japanese school not a hire someone for a position as an English teacher?

I have a degree and a TEFL certificate so I meet the Japanese school's requirements.

The only thing I am concerned about is that I have bad credit. When I was in middle school someone opened a credit card in my name and put my $3,000 in debt. I never found out until I applied for a credit card when I was 19 and got denied. I did a credit check and found out about this. I tried contacting the two companies, but was asked for the account information and since I had none of this information they refused to help me. I made calls and wrote letters once every month for a year explaining my situation and nothing came out of it. Finally I just got so tired I said screw it.

They should have checked the social security number with the date of birth when approving the credit card and they would see that it didn't match up. The same thing happened to my friend though and she got stuck paying for it. I have enough money to pay it off, but obviously I'd rather whoever opened it pay for it.

My point is if this is STILL not cleared up by the time I apply for jobs, will this affect the possibility of me being hired?

A part of me says YES, definitely! But then another part of me says no seeing as how a girl I went to school with it now with the JET programme and she's in $20,000 worth of debt and it's not even school related.

Would bad credit and/or debt make a Japanese school not a hire someone for a position as an English teacher?

No, english schools do not check your credit history prior to hiring. JET also doesn't check.

You'll be fine. My first time here, I'd just finished going through a bankruptcy due to a hospital bill I couldn't afford to pay due having no insurance. Lovely US...even with a job, no insurance sometimes.

Thank you both! I feel much better now! It would still be nice to get this cleared up so I can have a credit card of my own. Just have to keep hounding them to help me out I guess.