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Remove hard inquiries from personal credit

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit

Here are a few techniques we have figured out to minimize inquiries.  (Learned too late to reduce the present inquiries.)

 

(1)  We pull our own scores and frankly discuss them with anyone we anticipate doing business with.  They can tell us if it meets their standards.  If not, we move on and we don't have the aggravation of having another unfruitful inquiry.  For example, lately we have been looking at an equipment lease and commercial property lease.

 

(2)Based on which score is the best (Equifax for me) we ask which reporting agency is used, and choose the company who utilizes that score, or will if asked.  We must be the only ones doing that based on the responses we get.  But I think we ought to know.  No reason to be unpleasantly surprised!

 

(3)  Ask the company to do a soft pull instead of a hard pull.  Perhaps they will have to do a hard pull eventually, but make sure the deal is sealed first.

 

Hope this helps others!  Be proactive, not helpless victims of this corrupt, out of control credit reporting system (scam).

Message 11 of 22
Creditaddict
Legendary Contributor

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit


@Anonymous wrote:

Here are a few techniques we have figured out to minimize inquiries.  (Learned too late to reduce the present inquiries.)

 

(1)  We pull our own scores and frankly discuss them with anyone we anticipate doing business with.  They can tell us if it meets their standards.  If not, we move on and we don't have the aggravation of having another unfruitful inquiry.  For example, lately we have been looking at an equipment lease and commercial property lease.

 

(2)Based on which score is the best (Equifax for me) we ask which reporting agency is used, and choose the company who utilizes that score, or will if asked.  We must be the only ones doing that based on the responses we get.  But I think we ought to know.  No reason to be unpleasantly surprised!

 

(3)  Ask the company to do a soft pull instead of a hard pull.  Perhaps they will have to do a hard pull eventually, but make sure the deal is sealed first.

 

Hope this helps others!  Be proactive, not helpless victims of this corrupt, out of control credit reporting system (scam).


Some more local banks or business accounts that you are trying to get net 30 or something might consider having some of these conversations with you... Pulling your Fico and then calling but really it's hard to get to someone that would actually be the person that is manually looking at your credit report and your application on the phone to talk to about what you have and rather that will meet the requirements.

And asking what report... usually garners you a response of "any of the 3 or all 3" again getting the correct person on the phone... I have been told over and over by banks like GE or HSBC we pull all 3 which we all know happens almost never, I think I was the first to receive a triple pull from GE for Amazon! They are usually TU or EQ, never EX.

And finally asking for soft vs hard... again getting a rep that knows the difference between hard and soft is a big step and then getting a person that has those options on their computer.

 

But probably worth the time to try any of these steps if the INQ and other parts of the application really bothers you... just don't get your hopes up of what you will get told.

Message 12 of 22
ssghandless
Contributor

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit

In my case, one of the inquiries came from a CA not a business application. and I had a fraud alert placed on my account prior to the INQ with EX but they refused to remove the INQ. Of course it over a year ago but the fact that it was placed there bothers me and it counted as a HARD INQ. Is there a resolution to this? Smiley Sad



4/5/12 TU-635 Ex-634 Eq-646 (Kroll Fact. Home loan)
9/8/10 TU-654 Ex-627 Eq-638
8/1/10 TU-629 Ex-627 Eq-638


Starting Score: 526
Current Score: 635
Goal Score: 750


Take the FICO Fitness Challenge





Message 13 of 22
llecs
Moderator Emeritus

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit


@ssghandless wrote:

In my case, one of the inquiries came from a CA not a business application. and I had a fraud alert placed on my account prior to the INQ with EX but they refused to remove the INQ. Of course it over a year ago but the fact that it was placed there bothers me and it counted as a HARD INQ. Is there a resolution to this? Smiley Sad


Based on the Fair Credit Reporting Act, they can pull your credit and place a hard inquiry. Plenty of debate within these forums whether a CA has permissible purpose. In any case, FICO ignores the inquiry outside of 12 months so it isn't hurting any. Even though it isn't counted, the inquiry will drop at the 2-yr mark.

Message 14 of 22
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit

llecs, you are described as a moderator, and seem to speak with authority about what FICO will do (ignoring inquiries).

 

Here is my question to you: 

I charged an amount on my business credit card one week ago.  Utilization is still below 30%.  My FICO score dropped 42 points on my personal EQ score.  A rise in the CC balance was given as the reason. 

 

About two years ago a tax lien was removed completely, as it was an error on the IRS end, and the score did not go up at all.  My reading (in related news articles only) said my score should have gone up as much as 100 points.

 

Why?  And doesn't this seem arbitrary and capricious?

Message 15 of 22
Creditaddict
Legendary Contributor

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit


@Anonymous wrote:

llecs, you are described as a moderator, and seem to speak with authority about what FICO will do (ignoring inquiries).

 

Here is my question to you: 

I charged an amount on my business credit card one week ago.  Utilization is still below 30%.  My FICO score dropped 42 points on my personal EQ score.  A rise in the CC balance was given as the reason. 

 

About two years ago a tax lien was removed completely, as it was an error on the IRS end, and the score did not go up at all.  My reading (in related news articles only) said my score should have gone up as much as 100 points.

 

Why?  And doesn't this seem arbitrary and capricious?


It is not always a good system that makes sense which is why I think Suze Orman is really trying to push for changes to be made to the way a Fico Score is calculated.

When it comes to a business credit card and score lowering... My Question is:

1. What Bank is this Business Card through?

2. It is currently reporting on your credit history

 

The only way to be sure that it was that charge on your business card that made your score drop 40 points is to have pulled your score right before that charge and then again when you see the 42 point drop and if that is the only change... and that would seem like it was bad timing for a large purchase to go through days before your statement cut and posted balance.

 

I would have also thought that you would have seen a score gain when Lien was deleted but it would depend how long it had been on your reports, I didn't gain a single point, I actually might have lost about 20 when my Chapter 7 BK fell off my reports and further more I also saw NO change in score up or down when I settled to Charge Off accounts.... It made me be able to get approved for some new accounts but otherwise it was a waste of money from the stand point I probably would have seen a bigger score change if I had applied that $3-$4k to paying off several accounts to help Util.

Message 16 of 22
llecs
Moderator Emeritus

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit

I will preface this by saying that mods are regular joes (and janes) who ended up posting on here just like anyone else. We aren't privy to inside info, though we do get thrown a few nuggests here and there and repeat it for the fellow scoring junkies out there.

 

On the 30% util:

 

Creditaddict brings up one possible scenario: that the CC reported the higher balance before it reflected your payment. Also, if you charged one week ago, did a statement cut since that charge? CCs report 1x/mo and report around your statement date. And did the alert come from ScoreWatch?

 

Another is that 30% util you mentioned. 30% is still high CC utilization, in terms of your overall util. With a solid mix of credit, dropping from 30% down to under 5%, for example, can net you an additional 30-40 points for many folks. YMMV on your credit profile. What I don't know is if you increased from the single digits to 30% or if it maintained around 30%.

 

On the lien:

 

Do you have any other public records reporting (at that time) aside from the lien (e.g. other liens, a BK, judgments?)? If that was your only one, you are in a scoring bucket for those who have public records reporting. From reading others' examples, FICO will ding for the first, but largely ignore the remaining. Law of diminishing returns. Creditaddict might back me up, but it's just like scoring inquiries. After a couple, you won't see any score damage from that (I had 30+). So, assuming you still have others reporting, then removing one won't do much in terms of added points. Remove the last and you may or may not see some movement (see below).

 

Let say that was your last one. Congrats! You got rebucketed. Depending on your credit profile and depending on which bucket you moved into, you could easily have seen a gain from the demise of the lien only to be washed out by a loss due to rebucketing. It sounds bad, but it isn't. It means you are more poised to improve scores into the future. It also means you'll see more of an impact due to util, added accounts, added baddies, etc., versus before. This doesn't happen quite like this for everyone. I also have seen some high double-digit, even 100+ gains when their last baddie like a lien was removed. Also, were you monitoring FICO at that time too?

Message 17 of 22
MrImproveCredit
New Visitor

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit

I can remove inquiries from experian.
Message 18 of 22
Creditaddict
Legendary Contributor

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit


@MrImproveCredit wrote:
I can remove inquiries from experian.

You gots to go MODS

Message 19 of 22
llecs
Moderator Emeritus

Re: Remove hard inquiries from personal credit


@Creditaddict wrote:

@MrImproveCredit wrote:
I can remove inquiries from experian.

You gots to go MODS


Certainly it's a TOS issue if the prior poster were to offer services for sale or Credit Repair Discussion Guidelines issue if promoting some sort of method to remove legit inquiries. I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume he's referring to ID theft or some sort of non-permissible purpose situation whereby the inquiry shouldn't be there.

Message 20 of 22
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