@Anonymous wrote:This is out of curiousity. I've been duped by this before back in 2008, not from Citi. As a consequence, I had inquiry in my credit report. I did get approved as a consolation but I don't want to go the same way again.
I received pre-approved offers from Citi Diamond Preferred and Citi Dividend World MC. Are these really pre-approved offers that don't check or make inquiry in your credit file? or do they still inquiry and consequently hit my credit file with hard inquiries? Both offers say pre-approved and not pre-qualified or pre-selected to apply.
Thank you.
If you apply, you'll get a hard inquiry (they pull your report), because you're applying for credit. Pre-approvals generally result from a soft inquiry, where they buy a list of names of consumers who have a certain credit profile --maybe something like no BK's, no charge-offs, history at least 2 years old --and then send out "pre-approvals." You don't get hit with an inq from these soft inquiries, because they're not actually pulling your full report.
Some lenders --USAA and PenFed come to mind *and WFNNB as waralpha noted* --will offer honest-to-gosh preapprovals to existing customers, and if you accept, there's no hard inq. But this isn't true for those fun things that come in the mail from out of the blue.
eta: waralpha beat me to it, and in a lot fewer words, too. 
@tntexans72 wrote:@haulingthescore
What about pre-approvals with an invitation code to apply?
I recently received an invite from CITI for their American Airlines card for only 30,000 miles to apply and they gave me an invitation code.
I don't think that's any different. Maybe the "invitation code" helps them pull up whatever specific promo you're being offered, or maybe research has shown that more people bite when it's there.
Again, the purpose of hard inquiries is to show subscribers to credit bureaus that someone is seeking credit. Being "invited" to seek credit isn't any different.
In terms of scoring, there's often no penalty for the first hard on a specific report within the most recent 12 months, and then maybe 2-5 for the second; then maybe no penalty again for the third, then another hit for the fourth; and so on. Whether you get dinged and by how much varies by individual credit profile.
fwiw, I've always gotten a hard on one of my three reports when I app for a new card, except for accepting some PenFed offers. Pretty sure that I got one for my second USAA card, too, but I think I've read since then that this doesn't always happen nowadays.
Where I balk over getting hard inqs are for things like getting harded for a CLI request (aka, Chase and my Home Depot store card) and getting harded on multiple CRA's for one CC app (aka Cap One.)
eta: beaten once again, this time by lincognito! 
