topic Re: CLI's and hard inquiries in Credit Cards

CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:35:20 GMT

Hey y'all,

I've got a question that may not be a simple answer, but I'm going to give it a shot. First, a synopsis of me as seen by Experian:

Inq's: 24 (red flag, but caused by buying a truck, house, then refinancing truck, as well as adding CC's over the last 24 months...only 5 inq's in last year)

All Revolving: 9 TL's w/ 31% usage (total $23,550 avail)

Major CC's: 4 TL's w/ 10.3 usage ($13,450 avail)

Real estate: 2 accounts w/ no lates, $183K owed

Installment: 1 account, no lates, $14K owed

I'm trying to up my CL's on my major cards (CL's are $300, $400, $750, $2000, and $10,000). The $10K is a new Visa, and upgrade from Target, so not worried there, and BofA just blessed the $2000 from $1000, so I'm okay there. For the others (CapitalOne, Chase, and Household), I would like to request a CLI, but can't justify an inquiry because of the high number on there. I'm not getting ready for anything major (we bought a second car at a good rate, but it's not in the CRA's records yet, I guess). Is there a way around that? Why do some require an inquiry and some don't? And for a financial review, why are people afraid of one? It seems as long as you have something saying you make what you make, you should be okay, right?

I have another question, but will create another thread, as it may help others (haven't seen the topic yet). Thanks in advance for the help!

Frank

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:38:32 GMT

chase would likely be your best hope, then cap1's magic numeber.

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:48:06 GMT

lol you have 24 inquiries and I have less than half of that now I feel better

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:52:22 GMT

ashabbir1 wrote:
lol you have 24 inquiries and I have less than half of that now I feel better

he only has 5 in the last year, you have 5 in the last 15 minutes!

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:56:11 GMT

LOL, I thought of you while typing that out, Asha (hope that doesn't sound weird!), I see you've caught some, er...flack over your inquiries, and thought to myself, Wait 'til they see THIS!'.

DNM, you referred to CapOne as a magic number? What does that reference? A special phone number, or special amount they'll increase? Thanks for your help, y'all...

Message Edited by OBXFrank on 11-03-2007 04:56 PM

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:59:11 GMT

the thought i've heard about this number is that it may be directly to a rentention type of csr. others have had good reults getting apr's lowered and or cli's. i've never used it, but here go.

800-889-9939

good luck!

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

fused — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:00:02 GMT

OBXFrank wrote:

Hey y'all,

I've got a question that may not be a simple answer, but I'm going to give it a shot. First, a synopsis of me as seen by Experian:

Inq's: 24 (red flag, but caused by buying a truck, house, then refinancing truck, as well as adding CC's over the last 24 months...only 5 inq's in last year)

All Revolving: 9 TL's w/ 31% usage (total $23,550 avail)

Major CC's: 4 TL's w/ 10.3 usage ($13,450 avail)

Real estate: 2 accounts w/ no lates, $183K owed

Installment: 1 account, no lates, $14K owed

I'm trying to up my CL's on my major cards (CL's are $300, $400, $750, $2000, and $10,000). The $10K is a new Visa, and upgrade from Target, so not worried there, and BofA just blessed the $2000 from $1000, so I'm okay there. For the others (CapitalOne, Chase, and Household), I would like to request a CLI, but can't justify an inquiry because of the high number on there. I'm not getting ready for anything major (we bought a second car at a good rate, but it's not in the CRA's records yet, I guess). Is there a way around that? Why do some require an inquiry and some don't? And for a financial review, why are people afraid of one? It seems as long as you have something saying you make what you make, you should be okay, right?

I have another question, but will create another thread, as it may help others (haven't seen the topic yet). Thanks in advance for the help!

Frank

FICO scoring has a "de-duplication window" and it looks at your history for the last 12 months, and when it sees two or more hard inqs for the same type of mortgage or auto loan it will ignore all but one of them as far as scoring is concerned. If the lender is using an older FICO scoring model the window is 14 days, if they are using the newest model it can be 45 days.

Also keep in mind that even though the multiple inqs count as one in FICO scoring, all of the inqs will show-up on your reports for up to 2 years. So, how many of the inqs were mortgage and auto related? And how long were you shopping for both?

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:00:27 GMT

lol

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:11:56 GMT

I used freecreditreport.com (I know, I know...FAKO). I'm going to guesstimate at least 12 were auto or mortgage.

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

fused — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:18:56 GMT

OBXFrank wrote:

I used freecreditreport.com (I know, I know...FAKO). I'm going to guesstimate at least 12 were auto or mortgage.

I just posted in your other thread. Inqs at this point should be the least of you worries, you have very high util on your military star card. This will surely be a roadblock if you start apping for CLIs.

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:20:48 GMT

Regarding requesting an increase in CL with existing CC: I have not yet had a straight answer yet. This is my understanding at this point:

If I ask for an increase with an existing CC, they usually do a soft pull. Based on what B of A told me, they definately do a soft pull. Household Bank also told me that they do a soft pull, but said they were not sure if it would affect my score.

Can anyone tell me if they ever do a hard pull? Can a soft pull cost me a point or two or does a soft pull never cause my score to decrease?

Will put up seperate thread for this.

Hanniss

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:22:07 GMT

hanniss wrote:
Regarding requesting an increase in CL with existing CC: I have not yet had a straight answer yet. This is my understanding at this point:

If I ask for an increase with an existing CC, they usually do a soft pull. Based on what B of A told me, they definately do a soft pull. Household Bank also told me that they do a soft pull, but said they were not sure if it would affect my score.

Can anyone tell me if they ever do a hard pull? Can a soft pull cost me a point or two or does a soft pull never cause my score to decrease?

Will put up seperate thread for this.

Hanniss

hards can cost points, softs never do.

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

MidnightVoice — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 14:51:16 GMT

remember - most CSRs do not know the difference between hard and soft.

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 16:01:38 GMT

Okay, so I called Cap1, they gave me a boost from $750 to $3750 after a quick account review. Chase has an online request where they ask for income and amount requested. I plugged that in, and they said they'd be back w/in one business day. I tried to call, but hold times were very long. I'm not in a big rush, so I figured I'd go that route. I'll let y'all know how it turns out. Thanks for the help, y'all!

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 19:04:07 GMT

To Haniss-

I'm pretty sure I'm right when I say any CSR needs your EXPRESS permission to conduct a hard inquiry. That said, they would have to disclose that they were reviewing your credit prior to doing so. When I called Cap1 for a CLI, I listened very carefully when she explained the process, and she never asked anything of me, simply to wait while she took a few seconds to review the account. However, when I asked Chase a few months back, he said it required a review of my credit, and asked if I understood. I expressly asked if he was doing a hard inquiry, and sounding a bit like he was upset he hadn't sneaked it past me, he told me yes, it required a hard inquiry, so I told him no thank you.

Moral? Double check, and if they don't know, ask to speak to someone above them, and keep escalating...One other quick note - every time I've talked to Chase, the CSR has been someone for whom English was a second language at best. If you can't understand what they're telling you, be patient and ask them to slow down! He just about slipped that past me, but I asked him to repeat himself and that's when I caught it. Just food for thought if you happen to have a Chase card.

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

MidnightVoice — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 19:12:41 GMT

OBXFrank wrote:

One other quick note - every time I've talked to Chase, the CSR has been someone for whom English was a second language at best. If you can't understand what they're telling you, be patient and ask them to slow down! He just about slipped that past me, but I asked him to repeat himself and that's when I caught it. Just food for thought if you happen to have a Chase card.

That is interesting - every time I have called Chase I have got someone for whom English was not a language they spoke. They were **bleep** Yanks though

Seiously - I have always spoken to an American with Chase, and they have always happily told me they will do a hard pull for a CLI.

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

haulingthescoreup — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 19:16:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
...One other quick note - every time I've talked to Chase, the CSR has been someone for whom English was a second language at best. If you can't understand what they're telling you, be patient and ask them to slow down! He just about slipped that past me, but I asked him to repeat himself and that's when I caught it. Just food for thought if you happen to have a Chase card.

OBXFrank, is your Chase card a Chase-backed store card? Maybe they have a different set of CSR's for your card, or something.

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 19:46:14 GMT

Chase Amazon. Good possibility, but the number I call for CS is from the chase.com website. Maybe I was the unlucky one that drew overflow CSR's every time I called!

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

Anonymous — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:58:55 GMT

OBX Frank:

I just called Chase (have a frequent flyer credit card, United Airlines, with them), and asked if they do a hard or soft pull. The guy ensured me that it was a soft pull.... and he said that as far as he knew, there would not be a hit on my credit for it. Looks like the guy was not straightforward or just did not know, given that you guys all are saying they are doing a hard one. Will ask for supervisor next time I talk to them.

Re: CLI's and hard inquiries

MidnightVoice — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:06:59 GMT

hanniss wrote:
OBX Frank:

I just called Chase (have a frequent flyer credit card, United Airlines, with them), and asked if they do a hard or soft pull. The guy ensured me that it was a soft pull.... and he said that as far as he knew, there would not be a hit on my credit for it. Looks like the guy was not straightforward or just did not know, given that you guys all are saying they are doing a hard one. Will ask for supervisor next time I talk to them.

I have the same thing. I have discussed it twice over that few months and both times was told it was a hard.

But CSRs do not always know the difference!