Question regarding the 2 week time frame for hard inquires

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I am a little confused as to the particulars regarding the 2 week time frame in which all hard inquires are considered as 1 hard inquiry.  Does this rule only apply to credit card applications? If not, then does it apply separately to different categories. For instance, suppose with in the 2 week time frame you had 3 apartment companies pull your credit report, 2 auto dealers pull your report, and 2 credit card applications.  Will the total number of hard inquiries be 3, i.e. 1 for each category of hard inquires or just 1 which accounts for all 7 hard inquires?

Also, even though all hard inquires will be considered as 1 inquiry for the purposes of calculating the FICO score are all the inquires still entered into or listed on the credit report itself?

Thanks for your info in advance.

[iv]

That's not how it works...

Credit card inquiries are not de-duplicated at all.

Only auto, mortgage, and student loan inquiries have a rate-shopping window and de-duplication.

In most relevant versions of FICO, the rate-shopping window is 30 days (during that period, the inquiry is displayed on the report, but not factored into the score), and the de-duplication window is 45 days (all same-type auto/mortgage/student loan inquiries in the window do display on the report, but are de-duped into a single inquiry for scoring purposes).  In all cases, every inquiry does show individually on the report.

One of the older, but still commonly used FICO scoring models (Experian v2, one of the three mortage scores), has a de-dup window of only 14 days.

(In practice, mortgage inquiries are de-duped just fine, but in many cases auto inquiries are not correctly coded as such - and thus fail to de-dup.)

[Anonymous]

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@iv wrote:

That's not how it works...

Credit card inquiries are not de-duplicated at all.

Only auto, mortgage, and student loan inquiries have a rate-shopping window and de-duplication.

In most relevant versions of FICO, the rate-shopping window is 30 days (during that period, the inquiry is displayed on the report, but not factored into the score), and the de-duplication window is 45 days (all same-type auto/mortgage/student loan inquiries in the window do display on the report, but are de-duped into a single inquiry for scoring purposes).  In all cases, every inquiry does show individually on the report.

One of the older, but still commonly used FICO scoring models (Experian v2, one of the three mortage scores), has a de-dup window of only 14 days.

(In practice, mortgage inquiries are de-duped just fine, but in many cases auto inquiries are not correctly coded as such - and thus fail to de-dup.)

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+1.  There have been a number of posts about this, where someone is at a car dealership and is persuaded to give them his social security number.  Often without him realizing it, three dozen inquiries are racked up, and some of them aren't coding correctly as auto loans. 

So the oft repeated maxim that it's fine to shop for loans when buying a car is not actually true in practice. 

One more reason to secure financing through a single credit union BEFORE you begin negotiating for price.