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Strange Hard Inquiries

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Strange Hard Inquiries

Hi everyone,

 

I have extremely new credit (just got my first card about 4 months ago.) Already I seem to have piled up some hard inquiries that I definitely didn't authorize. There's one for Discover, and I have never applied for a card with them, and another from Paypal credit...Which, again, ive never applied for a card with them either. Is there a logical explanation for why these appear as hard inquiries? I know they can't be signs of identity theft because the inquiries happened months ago and there are no new accounts opened up. Any ideas or suggestions?

Message 1 of 6
5 REPLIES 5
RonM21
Valued Contributor

Re: Strange Hard Inquiries

If they are hard inquiries, and you didn't apply for any credit, I would think identity theft, or some sort of fraud. Nothing else would make sense, other then maybe if someone else close to you knows your info and used it. But that is more unlikely.


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Message 2 of 6
takeshi74
Senior Contributor

Re: Strange Hard Inquiries

No new accounts does not necessarily mean that it is not idenitity theft.  If it was identity theft, the person could have tried to open accounts with your information only to be denied.  It could be ID theft.  It could be that your reports were pulled when someone else's should have been pulled instead.  We can't say for certain but I recommend assuming the worst and treating it as ID theft.

Message 3 of 6
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Strange Hard Inquiries

Well, all three inquiries were made on like the same day...It was over a year ago. What should I do??

Message 4 of 6
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Strange Hard Inquiries

If you are saying you dont know why they are there and you didnt apply for any of those cards then I would send a dispute for the items. If you are using MyFico then it has a dispute  section under the dashboard. If not you can just go to the CRA directly and make a dispute there.

Message 5 of 6
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Strange Hard Inquiries

 

Call the lenders and find out what is going on. They will be interested to know if it's fraud and should work with you. You will want to find out whether they were opened using your actual address (or a thief's address) and so on. Once you have gathered data from the lenders you can file a dispute--but it may not even be necessary, if the lenders find it's fraud, they may be able to remove those items for you.

 

Over a year ago isn't having any impract on your score..... so it's not a big deal. But if it WAS fraud, you might want to be careful and look around for other signs of identity theft.

Message 6 of 6
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