Is this a legal hard inquiry?

[bmagnant]

My KeyBank card was recently sold (transferred?) to Elan Financial Services. As a part of this process, it looks like Elan Financial Services ran a hard inquiry at at least 2 of the credit agencies. I did not request any new credit from Elan or agree to anything as part of this transfer. It seems to me these should either have been soft inquiries or no inquiries at all.

Were these legal inquiries?

Brent

[guiness56]

Is this a CA?

[bmagnant]

No it is not a CA. It appears to be a credit card servicing group. This is a valid, paid as agreed card. I think KeyBank just outsourced my card servicing. 

[guiness56]

It is a legal inquiry.  I do agree they could have done a soft pull but the hard pull is still legal.  When Key Bank sold the account, with or without your consent, the others became your creditor.

[bmagnant]

Now that's weird... The inquiries are gone from my credit report now. They were there at 0600 and gone by 1100. 

I'll save my letter to KeyBank just in case they come back.

Of course the new account is showing it was opened in 2010. There probably isn't much they could do about that even if they wanted to. I have enough older accounts that the average age is still probably pretty decent.