Disputing Inquires

[Anonymous]

Acne on a pretty report. I . Love. This. 😅

[Anonymous]

How can I be sure they are all reporting the right type of loan inquiry?  I have one on my report that is from Cap One Auto Finance that is listed as installment loan, other and then on the same day COAF for auto loan, new and then one for loan, personal.  They're kind of all over the map and I don't think they're being counted as one even though I meticulously applied over a single weekend and that was it.  One auto dealer even ran it twice, once during my weekend and then 30 days later to see if my score had improved which I think is bogus.

[Anonymous]

@Achieving
Exactly. I've been applying for car refi and some of the HPs show as "revolving" and as "other types of loan", and the same when applying for a credit card and HP showing as "installment loan", That doesn't look like it's going to help to count as 1 HP for car loans

Anyway OP's question remains unanswered unfortunatelly. I haven't tried to remove HPs myself but I'd like to know an effective approach too, they can easily become a problem when applying for CCs. They don't just see your score, they read your report and their final decision is pretty random, people with 670 get approved and people with 790 get denied. They've asked me over the phone, one HP at a time to explain them all, don't remember which issuer now.

[RobertEG]

When a party makes a request for a copy of your credit report, they are not "reporting" to a CRA in the sense of providing any information to be entered into the consumer's credit file.  They are doing just the opposite,  They are requesting to see what information others have reported on the consumer.

They thus cannot report deletion of an inquiry in the same manner that they can report deletion of earlier, voluntary reporting to a consumer's credit file.

Once an inquiry is filled by a CRA, the toothpaste is out of the proverbial tube, and cannot be undone.  The info has been provided to the inquiree.

The FCRA mandates that the CRA provide records of inquiries made within certain periods if requested, and thus cannot aribtrarily delete inquiries unless they are clearly determined to have been improper, such as without proper permissible purpose.

An inquiree cannot simply send notice to a CRA to delete their prior, proper inquiry.  Such arbitrary deletions would preclude the statutory requirment for CRAs to maintain and provide legal records of filled inquiries.  That is why a CRA will tell you that filled inquiries become facts that cannot thereafter be subjectively deleted.

There are provisions, however, for an inquiree to request recoding of their inquiry as a so-called "soft" inquiry, which by definition then exludes the inquiry from credit reports provided to others, and thus from credit scoring.

[Anonymous]

As long as no one else has to see that there were 30 inquiries for a car loan on a single weekend at the end of August.. I'm fine with 9,999 soft inquiries.

This sort of haphazard and lack of attention to detail makes chasing these things down exhausting.  I did my due diligence and researched that if I did all my inquiries within 15 days at the very least, then they would all be counted as one pull for credit scoring.  I took sites like MyFico and the bureaus themselves at their word.  But now the top reason I am being denied for credit is too many inquiries in the past 2 years.  In the past two years I have had three inquiries, and then the loan fiasco which throws in on average 20 more.  If they should not be used as a factor in credit scoring, then if I apply for a card, it shouldn't be listed as a reason for denying me, right?  I've researched the cards I have applied for and having four inquiries in the past two years does not seem to pose a problem for others.  So everything else on my credit being equal, I'm not sure really what to think.

When potential creditors request my file, they are asked for a code to specify what sort of credit they are considering extending - or at least that's my impression.  If they are inaccurately or recklessly inputting the wrong code, I would consider that a fraudulent inquiry, and most certainly one I did not authorize.  Capital One Auto Finance pulled my credit four times on the same day, each with a different loan type specified.  Even though CAPITAL ONE AUTO FINANCE was the name listed as the requestor.  That can't be okay -- or have I gone insane?

And if CRAs do not ever consider deleting inquiries, then why is that even an option online when you file a dispute?  It seems like they are putting "low hanging fruit out there" to distract people from focusing on the real big issues (payment history, etc).  Could you tell me more about these provisions for changing the inquiries to soft pulls? 

Thanks again for your help, you are an awesome resource.

[rooeez]

---

@RobertEG wrote:

Be aware that if you do attempt to dispute inquiries, they are explicitly exempted from the direct dispute process under the implementing regulations at 16 CFR 660.4

The only dispute route is via the CRA.

The CRAs consider credit inquiries to be factually supported as long as the inquree has provided a statement of permissible purpose under one or more subsections of FCRA 604.  They will summarily deny disputes over credit inquires unless there is documentation of lack of any permissible purpose.

---

How do you document "lack of permissible purpose?" I have tried to dispute an DirecTV inquirty from April and it comes back as "verified." Obviously they would say the purpose is to extend credit/service, but I wonder how I can get them to provide the application, or other documentation, stemming from the request.

[Anonymous]

Your report should show you what information DirecTV provided the bureau to verify that they were authorized to check your report.  It can be as little as your bday and ssn.  

[Anonymous]

Update to anyone curious about loan shopping and inquiries:

If you wait until after the first full week of the month following your loan shopping these inquiries are in fact consolidated as they should be.  

They will show as individual inquiries (and count as such) if they are not properly coded (Automotive, Bank, Finance, etc) until the scoring model can recognize them all and lump them all together.  I have also discovered that if the exact same subscriber ID pulls your credit twice within six months those also only count as one inquiry.  The key here is it has to be the same ID... CAP ONE AUTO FINANCE is different than COAF (don't ask me how).

Right after my car loan, I had 32 inquiries on my report. Some of these were inquiries that were shown to other people (an application was denied for too many inquiries and it said 32, a number only I should have been able to see).  Now that the above required time has elapsed, they will still show on my credit reports as *hard inquiries* but the same card I was denied I got approved for and literally that was the only thing that changed.  MyFico shows there now to be only 8.  Not sure the rhyme or reason behind why it picked those 8.

Throwing it out there as a DP.  Anyone else have experience with this?