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Upon review of my credit reports, I have a total of 4 hard inquiries over a 4 month period. These inquiries are from a collection agency for a medical bill I had approximately 1 year ago.
So my questions are:
a) Can collection agencies pull your credit causing a hard inquiry without your knowledge and/or permission?
b) Can they do this 4 months consecutively causing 4 hard inquiries in 4 months??
This just seems so wrong to me. Please help.
There is controversy as to whether a CA has permissible purpose for a hard pull. I say no, many others say yes.
Your report can be pulled when there is a legitimate reason to do so. In my opinion, they should be doing soft pulls.
It happened to me, too.
I fall into the "a CA does not have PP" camp, personally. And I think that 4 consecutive pulls is a deliberate attempt to penalize you. I've suggested elsewhere that this is defamation and willful injury. Others think I'm nuts. *shrug*
That's my two cents.
By the way, Atryxia... this is weird timing, but I just found out an hour ago I got a CA to remove two inquiries.
I have about 18 inquiries total. Two are proper pp from OCs. A few are from CAs that I settled with and fall into that debated PP area. And several (the majority) were CAs that bought my debt, then sold it to other CAs (with whom I eventually settled). My stance is that if they bought the debt, then sold it they most likely no longer have any way of proving PP. Further, several of these guys pulled two and four times in a 30 day period. Scum.
So, I sent certified PP, "Pay Me Succa" letters last week. Just received all of the green cards back this week. And this afternoon, received two letters from one CA stating they removed the inquiries, this letter is your proof, allow 30 days for CRA to update, blah, blah.
I don't think I'll risk it with the CAs I settled with. This may not be worth your or others' time - I know inquiries aren't the biggest deal in the scheme of things (and there's the money thing - several certified mailings add up). But for me, it was about the principle.
There you go.