Hi,
Here's a little run down on my situation...
I had perfect credit until I moved out of the country. I took with me my two US credit cards which I owed money on and continued paying. After about a year, I was attending school full-time, working part-time, etc. and got behind on payments. I then got slammed with late fees, etc. and eventually stopped paying them because I was overwhelmed and unable to. Sometime in early 2005, I received one collection agency letter from only one of the cards and that was it. I never heard from any debt collectors again.