Credit Repair and Debt Solutions | Inquiries On Your Credit Report

Inquiries On Your Credit Report

Inquiries on your credit report may be hurting your credit score, so don’t ignore them when you’re scouring your credit report for inaccurate or questionable items!

“Hard” vs. “Soft” Inquiries

There are two types of credit inquiries: “hard” and “soft”. Only hard inquiries hurt your credit score. Hard inquiries result from potential lenders pulling your credit report when you apply for credit with them. The following are all examples of soft inquiries: you pulling your own credit report; a potential employer checking your credit; and credit card companies inquiring on your report to see if you are eligible for promotional offers (if you want to prevent them from doing that, call 1-888-8-OPTOUT). Creditors that you have a current relationship with may also monitor your credit by pulling your report from time to time; this would also be a soft inquiry.

How Hard Inquiries Affect Your Credit Score

It has been estimated that each hard inquiry lowers your credit score by 5 points. Most inquiries will stay on your credit report for 1 to 2 years.

The exception is if you’re shopping around for a mortgage or auto loan. In that case, any hard inquiries for the same type of credit occurring within 14 days of each other will only count as one inquiry as far as your credit score is concerned. But remember, this only applies to home and auto loans, not to credit card or any other type of inquiries!

Unauthorized Inquiries

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires that whoever pulls your credit report does so only with permissible purpose. So if you see any inquiries on your report that you don’t recall authorizing, you should dispute them.

The best way to dispute an inquiry is to send a letter to the creditor in question stating that you do not recall authorizing them to pull your credit report. Ask them to either provide you with proof that they had permissible purpose to inquire on your report, or delete the inquiry. Send the letter certified mail with return receipt requested, and keep copies for your records.

In the event that the creditor doesn’t respond to your dispute or fails to delete the inquiry without providing proof of permissible purpose, you will need to dispute the listing with the credit bureau and send them a copy of the letter you sent to the creditor.

If you have any questions about inquiries on your credit report, please feel free to comment.

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  4. How to Dispute a Listing on Your Credit Report

Filed Under credit inquiries, credit repair, credit scores, disputes | 2 Comments

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2 Responses to “Inquiries On Your Credit Report”

  1. Patricia on September 11th, 2009 11:23 pm

    I had a debt with PNC bank. this was posted in 2007. I paid this debt off last year, but is still on public records. There is anyway I can get it remove.I call the collection agency in charge they said that It wouldn’t be remove of my credit record for 5 years.

    [Reply]

    admin Reply:
    September 12th, 2009 at 2:16 am

    Hi Patricia,

    Unfortunately, as you have found out, simply paying debts won’t remove them from your credit report. In order to get it removed, you will need to dispute the listing.

    If the collection agency is the one reporting the debt on your credit report, you have a great chance of getting it deleted! This is for 2 reasons:

    1) Collection agencies rarely have the proper documentation to make the listing “stick” if you were to challenge it. The law requires that if you dispute a listing, whoever is reporting the item must prove that it is accurate. If they can’t (very common with third party debt collectors), they must delete it.

    2) You have already paid them, therefore they have nothing to gain by wasting time on your dispute. They may just delete the listing rather than take the time to dig up the proof required for them to keep it on your credit report.

    Please see this page for information on how to dispute the item:

    http://creditrepairanddebtsolutions.com/how-to-dispute-a-listing-on-your-credit-report/

    Remember not to get discouraged if the credit bureau doesn’t delete it on your first try. If they respond claiming the listing is “verified”, they must provide you with the contact address of whoever supposedly verified the listing. At that point, you will need to go after the collection agency by demanding, in writing, that they provide proof of the accuracy of the listing, otherwise they must remove it. That usually makes it disappear :)

    If you have any other questions feel free to ask!

    [Reply]

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