Double inquiry after apartment application

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I recently noticed that for some reason a real estate brokerage pulled my EXP report twice (on the same day) for a single apartment application. As a result, I have two hard pulls (presumably impacting my score), when I should only have a single one.

Is there any way to dispute this? It seems like the only dispute reasons available for hard pulls are related to outright fraud/identity theft.

Alternatively, I've read that the double inquiry could potentially be counted as a single one for the purpose of FICO scoring since they were both on the same day, similar to when mortgage shopping, etc. Would this be the case?

Thanks!

[RobertEG]

The FCRA does not set a "one inquiry" limit once the party has permissible purpose.

They cannot continue to pull indefinately, but as long as the multiple inquiries are relatively close, and thus can be associated with the same permissible purpose, there is no basis for a dispute.

FICO only scores multiple inquiries as a single inquiry if it is either a mortgage, auto, or student loan related inquiry.

Thus, you are likely being dinged twice.

I would suggest contacting the apartment management and asking that they recode the inquiries as soft, or at least any second or subsequent inquiry.