@Anonymous wrote:Not sure about the (hard?) inquiry, but the rest looks okay to me. That's why having at least decent credit is important if you want to get certain jobs that require corporate credit cards.
Yep, they pulled a hard inquiry. I guess what's odd to me is if my company is backing it as it is only to be used for business use only, why would it have anything to do with my personal credit? I didn't apply for an AMEX as it's not a card I would like for my personal use, yet because my company wants me to use it they check my credit. Now I have an inquiry and the CC will never show on my CR is what I have read. So in turn it looks like I'm applying for credit and not getting it because of the inquiry and no new AMEX account posting. Just irritated about it. Doesn't seem copasetic.
I don't know why people get so concerned about this. It's one inquiry on your report. Yes, it is a problem if your credit is too low for you to be able to get the card. And I've been there. I was almost denied a Diner's Club card at my last job. I got the job right after being unemployed for over 6 months. My credit was in the tank. It was very frustrating because I needed the job to start paying my bills and I was worried about the credit check. But they checked my credit before giving me the job anyway, the corporate credit card was a side issue.
In any event, it's not unreasonable for a company to want to see how you handle your finances before issuing you a card even if they are backing it. I did get the Diner's card. I know there was no way in hell I could have gotten a similar card with my score at the time. So their approval criteria is different considering that the company is backing the card. But there are probably things they still want to check for. My issue was recent late payments because of unemployment. But I had no charge offs, collections, judgments, etc. At some level, probably tons of charge offs and unpaid collections, I imagine they'd be unwilling to issue the card even if it is backed by someone eles. That seems reasonable to me. Of all the things an employer can require you to do, carrying a coprorate credit card to charge business expenses isn't that onerous.
Putting the bad credit issue aside, a lot of people seem to object to this just because of the inquiry. It's one inquiry on your report. It isn't that big of a deal. I think people tend to overplay the significance of a hard inquiry on this site.
Also, I don't see how using your personal card helps you that much. If the company refuses to reimburse you, you're still on the hook for the charges. If anything, I would think you'd get less sympathy from your personal credit card company trying to explain to them that it was a business charge that you shouldn't be responsible for.
Starting Score: ~500 (12/01/2008)
@Anonymous wrote:
I thInk it's BS that it inquiries but doesn't report. That's really unfair to the employee. But it is what it is.
Would you really want a new account to show up? What if there's no backdating? Now you'd have another tradeline affecting your AAoA and take another ding in addition to the hard inquiry. And you'd have large balances constantly posting unless you wanted to try to manipulate your utilization by paying before statement cut, which could mean paying before you were reimbursed. Even if the balance isn't figured in your utilization, you'd potentially have one more item to explain on a manual review. I've had months with $20K in expenses. It probably wouldn't have been difficult to explain that I wasn't really carrying $20K in credit card debt, but I'd rather not bother. I was perfectly satisfied not having the Diner's Club card show up on my personal report.