{"id":351004,"date":"2014-03-04T07:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/?p=351004"},"modified":"2014-03-18T13:09:54","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T19:09:54","slug":"how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do Inquiries Affect My Credit Score?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A number of reasons can cause your credit score to go down. Late pays, bankruptcies, foreclosures and high debt ratios all lower your credit score.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Did you also know your score can be decreased due to the number of inquiries you\u2019ve had?<\/p>\n

An inquiry occurs when someone requests a view of or data from your credit report. All inquires stay on your credit report for 2 years.<\/p>\n

Someone can\u2019t just pull your credit report at random.\u00a0 To address privacy concerns, the law (the Fair Credit Reporting Act) limits the access to your report.\u00a0 Anyone requesting a view of your report must have what is known as permissible purpose. Permissible purpose is granted:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Through court order<\/li>\n
  2. When the information is used to determine insurance quotes<\/li>\n
  3. When the information will be used to determine suitability for employment<\/li>\n
  4. With written permission from the consumer.<\/li>\n
  5. To review an account to determine whether the consumer continues to meet the terms of the account.<\/li>\n
  6. To determine the eligibility of a person to get a license or other government benefit.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The effect of inquiries on your credit score can be confusing and does not seem to be well understood by the American public. For most consumers, a single hard inquiry only results in loss of less than 5 points, according to Fair Isaac, the company who developed the FICO score. \u00a0Another happy piece of news: only hard inquiries from the last 12 months count towards your score. \u00a0We\u2019ll discuss the difference between hard and soft inquiries in the answer to a recent question that I received:<\/p>\n

    Q.<\/strong> I applied for a credit card and was turned down. \u00a0One of the reasons listed was \u201cYou have too many inquiries on your credit report\u201d.\u00a0 I have applied for other credit cards recently \u2013 did I ruin my chances of getting a new card?\u00a0 By the way, I\u2019ve never been late paying on any of my loans.<\/p>\n

    A. <\/strong>\u00a0The impact of inquiries on your credit report should be small, a matter of a few points per request.\u00a0 The total effect depends on the type and number of credit report pulls that you had.\u00a0 \u00a0There are two types of inquiries, hard<\/em> and soft<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    A soft inquiry occurs when:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Your data is accessed for a pre-approved offer of credit.\u00a0 With pre-approved offers, individual credit reports are not actually accessed. Your information and credit score is sold as you are determined to be a \u201clikely person who would get approved for X offer if he\/she applied\u201d.\u00a0 These types of inquiries are called promotional inquiries.<\/li>\n
    2. An existing creditor wants to review your report.\u00a0\u00a0 Existing creditors want to mitigate their risks by keeping track of how your credit rating changes.\u00a0 Should you start to miss payments on many accounts, the creditor may want to reduce or close your line of credit.<\/li>\n
    3. An insurance company uses your credit for a premium quote.<\/li>\n
    4. Potential employers review your credit report.<\/li>\n
    5. You request a copy of your own credit report.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Please note: debt collectors (they are considered creditors) are allowed to pull your credit to see if there is recent credit activity.\u00a0\u00a0 They are interested in whether or not you are opening new accounts \u2013 if you are, you may be now able to pay delinquent accounts that have been collecting dust for the past few years.<\/p>\n

      Soft inquiries are not counted<\/em> toward your credit score and are not shown to potential lenders.<\/p>\n

      A hard inquiry occurs when a person applies for new credit.\u00a0\u00a0 Each hard inquiry does count<\/em> against your credit score and is viewed by potential lenders.\u00a0\u00a0 Now that we\u2019ve said that, there are exceptions to this rule.\u00a0\u00a0 If you\u2019ve been doing some rate shopping, say talking to several lenders about a home or auto loan, all report viewing requests within a 14-45 day period (depending on the scoring model) count as one inquiry as far as the scoring model goes.<\/p>\n

      To view your inquiries, you need to get your hands on a copy of your credit report.\u00a0 The best place, and cheapest (free), is annualcreditreport.com.<\/p>\n

      Once you have your credit report in hand, it\u2019s time to dive into this confusing mass of information.\u00a0 In order to help you decode it, I pulled my own credit report from annualcreditreport.com to see how each bureau structures their information.<\/p>\n

      Transunion:\u00a0 Inquiries are divided into \u201cRegular Inquiries\u201d and \u201cAccount Review Inquiries\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0Only Regular Inquiries<\/em> are hard inquiries and count against your score.<\/p>\n

      Equifax: Inquiries are identified by the self-explanatory \u201cInquiries that may impact your credit rating\u201d(hard) and \u201cInquiries that do not impact your credit rating\u201d (soft).\u00a0\u00a0 In addition to the date and company requesting your report, Equifax gives detailed information on each of soft inquiries.<\/p>\n

      Experian: Inquiries are divided up into \u201cRequests Viewed by Others\u201d and \u201cRequests Viewed Only by You\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0Only Requests Viewed by Others<\/em> are hard and can impact your credit score.<\/p>\n

      If you didn\u2019t get your information from your annualcreditreport.com, it\u2019s hard to say how the information will be presented.\u00a0 Some investigation is required.<\/p>\n

      If the report doesn\u2019t break inquiries into hard\/soft categories:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. See if you can dig out the promotional inquiries. Have you received any of pre-approved offers in the mail recently?\u00a0 If you recognize any of the banks listed, most likely these listings were promotional offers.<\/li>\n
      2. You can also cross off listings from existing creditors as soft.<\/li>\n
      3. After performing steps 1 and 2, any inquiries remaining on your credit report can be considered hard.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t recognize those remaining inquiries, it could be a sign that you are a victim of identity theft, so don\u2019t be shy about investigating these.\u00a0 A call to customer service (Google the number) can verify whether or not you applied for credit from the listed company.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Did you really get turned down due to inquiries?\u00a0 It\u2019s possible, but doubtful.\u00a0 A credit score factors in many things: age of credit lines, payment history, ratio of used to available credit (credit utilization). You didn\u2019t give clues about the rest of the information in your credit report.\u00a0 If your payment history is on time, the most likely culprit is your credit utilization, the second biggest weighting factor in scoring.\u00a0 If you use more than 25% of your available credit, you are going to get hit with a pretty big score drop.<\/p>\n

        In your case, it sounds to me as if you were sitting in a \u201cmarginal\u201d area, score wise, where a few points subtracted could make the difference between good and \u201cmarginal\u201d credit risks.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I\u2019d look at your credit report as a whole to see where you can improve your rating (like paying down your credit cards).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        A number of reasons can cause your credit score to go down. Late pays, bankruptcies, foreclosures and high debt ratios all lower your credit score.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Did you also know your score can be decreased due to the number of inquiries you\u2019ve had? An inquiry occurs when someone requests a view of or data from your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Do Inquiries Affect My Credit Score? - CreditRepair.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Do Inquiries Affect My Credit Score?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A number of reasons can cause your credit score to go down. Late pays, bankruptcies, foreclosures and high debt ratios all lower your credit score.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Did you also know your score can be decreased due to the number of inquiries you\u2019ve had? An inquiry occurs when someone requests a view of or data from your […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CreditRepair.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-04T14:00:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-03-18T19:09:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/How-Do-Inquiries-Affect-My-Credit-Score.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kristy Welsh\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"CreditRepair.com\",\"description\":\"We are the credit repair experts\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/How-Do-Inquiries-Affect-My-Credit-Score.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/How-Do-Inquiries-Affect-My-Credit-Score.jpg\",\"width\":500,\"height\":334},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/\",\"name\":\"How Do Inquiries Affect My Credit Score? - CreditRepair.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-04T14:00:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-03-18T19:09:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9d17553fca137ac7dd52fdddee3e39d4\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/credit-repair\/how-do-inquiries-affect-my-credit-score\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How Do Inquiries Affect My Credit Score?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/9d17553fca137ac7dd52fdddee3e39d4\",\"name\":\"Kristy Welsh\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creditrepair.com\/blog\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dfa70ee711288ab00d6b5c0cf27ce8c7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dfa70ee711288ab00d6b5c0cf27ce8c7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kristy Welsh\"},\"description\":\"So how is geeky Kristy Welsh (former rocket scientist and current software guru) also a credit expert? 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After being laid off from her career in Aerospace engineering, Welsh served a short stint as a mortgage professional in the early 90s. It was there she first learned how to fix people\u2019s credit in order to get her loans funded. When the Internet, recession and bankruptcy came knocking on her door all at about the same time, she learned web programming, database design and a lot more about credit and debt. As a hobby, and to fill a need in the credit knowledge deficit of the average person, Welsh founded CreditInfoCenter.com in 1997. From daily research and correspondence with the credit and debt challenged, Welsh turned the original 9-page site into a personal finance information powerhouse. In 2001, Welsh published Good Credit is Sexy, a tongue in cheek guide to restoring credit. The book is now in its 4th edition. 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