About three month after closing a mortgage refinance, a hard INQ turned up on my TU credit report, attributed to "144 TENA Companies, via CBCINNOVIS", with PP "Credit Transaction". I had not applied for credit at that time, so this appeared to be an unauthorized INQ, and I thought I should look into it. CBC had obtained my CR previously as part of the original application, so I thought perhaps this was a miscoded "account review". And the credit report gave CBC's phone number as the contact for this INQ, so I started with them.
A very nice CSR there told me that TENA's business includes doing "mortgage audits", which do not just review the borrower's credit situation, like an AR, but rather verify that the mortgage was processed properly, with correct documentation including a credit report. She thought it was required by law or regulation.
I checked out TENA's website, which seemed to substantiate much of this, then called them to inquire further. Another very nice CSR confirmed what I had been told, and added that these audits are performed "for a randomly selected 10% of the creditor's loans". And she claimed that TENA has PP deriving from something I signed in the mortgage application.
This all sounded like the apparently bogus INQ might be legit after all. But then things got a little weird. I asked why this would have been a hard INQ, since I was not requesting, nor receiving, new credit. The TENA CSR said that, "unfortunately, one credit bureau, Equifax, requires us to do that before they will release the information". I said, well, this was on my Transunion report. And she said "Oh yes, they're the same, Equifax Transunion."! I contradicted this, and she did agree that maybe I was right.
Anyway, I'm left with a plausible story, but I heard it from someone who thinks EQ and TU are the same. I'm hoping someone familiar with the mortgage business can confirm: Are these "mortgage audits" actually required as they were described? Does TENA have PP for the pull? Does TU require a hard pull for such requests? And how do they justify that?
Thanks, appreciate any knowledge or experience anyone can report.
Starting Score: EQ 804 - (April 2009)
This is a bump, as well as providing some additional info I learned.
I must admit I was pretty disappointed that nobody reported any experience similar to my maybe-bogus INQ. But I also had to admit I was being pretty lazy just asking without doing any research myself. So I looked into this mortgage audit business. A Google search turned up my own post here on Fico Forum, plus lots of articles about scams by "mortgage rescue" services, aimed at people facing foreclosure, who are led to hope that a "mortgage audit" will turn up some irregularity in their original loan processing. But mixed in were a few other bits that tended to confirm what I'd heard from the CS people I talked with.
Apparently the part about "required by law or regulation" isn't quite right; it's required by Fannie/Freddie, though, which is almost the same. Also, some lenders require it as part of internal quality control. And yes, these are usually hard pulls. And they do inherit PP from the mortgage originator. So, it looks like I'm stuck with this INQ for another nine months.
The info I found also confirmed the "randomly selected 10% of loans closed" I had been told, which left me wondering again why nobody on this forum seemed to have taken a similar hit. I searched this board for posts similar to mine, and found only a few, and only one in the last two years (added comments to that one).
Would still like to hear if anyone else got a hard pull like this in the last year or so! Thanks.
@Duke-of-Earl wrote:About three month after closing a mortgage refinance, a hard INQ turned up on my TU credit report, attributed to "144 TENA Companies, via CBCINNOVIS", with PP "Credit Transaction". I had not applied for credit at that time, so this appeared to be an unauthorized INQ, and I thought I should look into it. CBC had obtained my CR previously as part of the original application, so I thought perhaps this was a miscoded "account review". And the credit report gave CBC's phone number as the contact for this INQ, so I started with them.
A very nice CSR there told me that TENA's business includes doing "mortgage audits", which do not just review the borrower's credit situation, like an AR, but rather verify that the mortgage was processed properly, with correct documentation including a credit report. She thought it was required by law or regulation.
I checked out TENA's website, which seemed to substantiate much of this, then called them to inquire further. Another very nice CSR confirmed what I had been told, and added that these audits are performed "for a randomly selected 10% of the creditor's loans". And she claimed that TENA has PP deriving from something I signed in the mortgage application.
This all sounded like the apparently bogus INQ might be legit after all. But then things got a little weird. I asked why this would have been a hard INQ, since I was not requesting, nor receiving, new credit. The TENA CSR said that, "unfortunately, one credit bureau, Equifax, requires us to do that before they will release the information". I said, well, this was on my Transunion report. And she said "Oh yes, they're the same, Equifax Transunion."! I contradicted this, and she did agree that maybe I was right.
Anyway, I'm left with a plausible story, but I heard it from someone who thinks EQ and TU are the same. I'm hoping someone familiar with the mortgage business can confirm: Are these "mortgage audits" actually required as they were described? Does TENA have PP for the pull? Does TU require a hard pull for such requests? And how do they justify that?
Thanks, appreciate any knowledge or experience anyone can report.
Thanks for commenting, IOBA. All I can add is that I contacted both the mortgage servicer and the LO who handled the loan origination. Both confirmed the story I had put together (perhaps just to shut me up, of course), and agreed that it hung together with the closing and purported audit INQ dates. Neither could locate any records to verify it, though.
But I've heard the same story from enough sources other than the CB (and from folks I'd much rather have lunch with than the nasty reps at TU) that I tend to believe this is some arbitrary (and possibly illegal) collusion among the CBs. Not much I can do about it, since they will refuse to honor a dispute on an INQ.