topic Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

bluefoxing — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 18:51:12 GMT

I recently purchased a vehicle from Carmax. Apparently, they ran my credit TWELVE times, as my inquires skyrocketed to 31!

I've already prepared a letter to Carmax demanding they drop all but 1 of the inquiries. Will these hurt my score if I leave them there?

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

RobertEG — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 18:57:18 GMT

It is very common practice for dealers to shop your app arround.

FICO recognizes both that practice, and that consumers may also do their own multiple apps for auto and mortgage shopping.

Thus, it counts all inquiries for auto or mortgage as a single inquiry if made within a sliding window, which is usually approx 2 weeks in width, but varies with the FICO model.

All inquiries will show in your credit report, but will not all be scored if properly coded as auto or mortgage.

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 19:54:58 GMT

Though the statement "All inquiries will show in your credit report, but will not all be scored if properly coded as auto or mortgage" may be true, I have also recently been shopped around by a dealership and over half the inquiries they placed (of which there were many) came back as something other than "auto". I have been informed that there is very little chance of having them properly coded.

I also applied for a credit card shortly after that and was denied for "too many inquiries". According to the bank with which I applied - it didn't matter that they were all in the same window - they were counted separately. So - although FICO might count them together within your score - the banks looking at your applications very well may not.

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

bluefoxing — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 20:24:45 GMT

I'll still send my letter. Can't hurt!

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

takeshi74 — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 20:59:34 GMT

That number does seem excessive but if you want to avoid multiple pulls by dealers then sort out your financing on your own and don't let dealers pull your credit. You can certainyl request removal but they had permissible purpose.

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

disdreamin — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 00:54:25 GMT

I was afraid of the very thing that happened to the OP, so I did the same thing, shopping on my own. I just told them to assume the credit was fine and asked what the very best rate possible was. I ended up going with a local CU as they had the best rates, but I didn't give my personal info to ANYONE until I had settled on the best rate and was ready to pull the trigger.

When I've done dealership financing in the past, I told them I was ONLY interested in financing right from the manufacturer and to NOT shop me to anyone else. I didn't want to end up in the same place where I got shopped and my inquiries skyrocketed. I know the theory of scoring regarding multiple inquiries for the same purpose (mortgage, auto) but I've also read that it doesn't always work the way it was intended. Sorry that you got dinged by this, OP.

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 01:28:36 GMT

I try to get financing outside the dealership, check in hand, then freeze my reports. I don't trust the dealership to not "try and get me a better deal on financing" then proceed to assault my poor reports. I've got the check guys, gimmie the car.

Yay for new car I hope!

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

bestchoiceglobal — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 19:00:02 GMT

I like your thinking buyaobuyao I won't go car shopping again without freezing my reports...bought a car 2 months ago and get to enjoy about 20 new inquiries separately on my 3 reports. :/

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 21:33:53 GMT

I recently purchased a vehicle thru a Nissan dealership. That one vehicle purchase, hit my credit report 3 times. 1st by local dealership on Date A, 2nd by Nissan Corp on Date A, and 3rd by Nissan Corp on Data A + 1 (the very next day). The funny thing is that I was approved for the loan on Date A for 0% by the local dealership thru Nissan Corp. Then on the very next day, even though I had the vehicle in hand (signed, sealed, delivered), for the life of me I can't figure out why then ran my credit report that 2nd time on the very next day.

So on day #1 - 2 credit report pulls, and on day #2 - 1 credit report pull = 3 hard pulls.

Something smells fishy about that 2nd day, and that I should probably try to get it removed since I already had the vehicle???????? Hmmmmm...

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 21:40:29 GMT

The same thing happened to me in August with my new car purchase. Fourteen inquiries across two credit bureaus. My next purchase I will go in with my own financing. So sorry this happened to you, OP.

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

bluefoxing — Sat, 05 Dec 2015 22:53:10 GMT

buyaobuyao wrote:

Yay for new car I hope!

I did go home with a brand new Nissan.

Target RedCard denied me only because of the multitude of inquires from the dealership shopping me around for the best rate. I explained what happened and they said they understood but until they were removed, they couldnt approve me. Ugh! Thank you CarMax... NOT.

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

L0RDAVENTAD0R — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 07:14:57 GMT

@bluefoxing wrote:
I recently purchased a vehicle from Carmax. Apparently, they ran my credit TWELVE times, as my inquires skyrocketed to 31!

OP - This is extremely common if you rely on the dealership to find financing for you. This is not a bad thing.

@bluefoxing wrote:

I've already prepared a letter to Carmax demanding they drop all but 1 of the inquiries. Will these hurt my score if I leave them there?

This will not hurt your score.

Directly quoted from myFICO:

"Does the formula treat all credit inquiries the same?

No. Research has indicated that FICO Scores are more predictive when they treat loans that commonly involve rate-shopping, such as mortgage, auto and student loans, in a different way. For these types of loans, FICO Scores ignore inquiries made in the 30 days prior to scoring. So, if you find a loan within 30 days, the inquiries won't affect your scores while you're rate shopping. In addition, FICO Scores look on your credit report for rate-shopping inquiries older than 30 days. If your FICO Scores find some, your scores will consider inquiries that fall in a typical shopping period as just one inquiry. For FICO Scores calculated from older versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 14 day span. For FICO Scores calculated from the newest versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 45 day span. Each lender chooses which version of the FICO scoring formula it wants the credit reporting agency to use to calculate your FICO Scores."

The advice that everyone here is telling you to find your own financing is good advice, but Carmax isn't the bad guy here for pulling you 12 times.

It's extremely common for dealerships to pull you multiple times but as long as they are coded as an auto inquiry and are within a 14 day span, they will only be treated as one inquiry. They will show up as multiple inquiries on a detailed credit report, in your case 12, but it will only show up as one if you apply for a new credit card or something else.

Nothing to worry about.

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 19:34:49 GMT

@lordAventador wrote:
@bluefoxing wrote:
I recently purchased a vehicle from Carmax. Apparently, they ran my credit TWELVE times, as my inquires skyrocketed to 31!

OP - This is extremely common if you rely on the dealership to find financing for you. This is not a bad thing.

@bluefoxing wrote:

I've already prepared a letter to Carmax demanding they drop all but 1 of the inquiries. Will these hurt my score if I leave them there?
This will not hurt your score.

Directly quoted from myFICO:

"Does the formula treat all credit inquiries the same?

No. Research has indicated that FICO Scores are more predictive when they treat loans that commonly involve rate-shopping, such as mortgage, auto and student loans, in a different way. For these types of loans, FICO Scores ignore inquiries made in the 30 days prior to scoring. So, if you find a loan within 30 days, the inquiries won't affect your scores while you're rate shopping. In addition, FICO Scores look on your credit report for rate-shopping inquiries older than 30 days. If your FICO Scores find some, your scores will consider inquiries that fall in a typical shopping period as just one inquiry. For FICO Scores calculated from older versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 14 day span. For FICO Scores calculated from the newest versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 45 day span. Each lender chooses which version of the FICO scoring formula it wants the credit reporting agency to use to calculate your FICO Scores."

The advice that everyone here is telling you to find your own financing is good advice, but Carmax isn't the bad guy here for pulling you 12 times.

It's extremely common for dealerships to pull you multiple times but as long as they are coded as an auto inquiry and are within a 14 day span, they will only be treated as one inquiry. They will show up as multiple inquiries on a detailed credit report, in your case 12, but it will only show up as one if you apply for a new credit card or something else.

Nothing to worry about.

Something worth keeping in mind is that a FICO score is just one component (although a very, very important one) in determining whether that person is considered credit worthy by a bank/lender. FICO may ignore the multiple inquiries when scoring but those inquiries still show up on the credit report. A lender's in-house algorithm may not be so lenient.

A related (but not exact) example would be Chase's internal "5 cards in 2 years" rule. They don't care if you have a perfect 850 FICO score...no one is getting approved if your credit report does not pass their rule.

My advice to those looking for applying for credit is that to nothing ever goes according to plan. Every bank and every lender has their own set of approval algorithms. If you are trying to maximize funding and minimize inquiries then it is practically always a better idea to secure you own financing so that you have better control over the results.

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

designated_knitter — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 20:14:13 GMT

I've been told that this is also known as "shot-gunning" you... so that if you try to go some place else to buy a car, you've already been shopped around to virtually every other lender already and the multiple apps with the same lender in a short period of time will cause you to be denied... so if you got approved at the first place, you are stuck having to go back to the first place (unless you line up your own financing).

And even though they SAY that all the inquiries only count as one... when I check my CRs and it lists the number of inquires I have, that total number includes all the dealer inquries. So lets say I had 3 inquiries non-car related and 10 dealer-initiated inquries, my CRs still show I have 13 inquries... not just "4"... Perhaps it is scored as a 4 but it still appears as 13 on your report....

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

bluefoxing — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 18:54:04 GMT

Thank you all for your input, advice and experiences.

I spoke with the lender Im working with today to try and cater more to their algorithm and scoring. These multiple inquires will not hurt how they view my scores. After 120 days these should fall off so I was advised to stop applying for credit to help my home loan purchase in the long run.

In the garden I go!

Re: Dealership Hit My Inquiry List 12xs

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 19:03:42 GMT

@bluefoxing wrote:
Thank you all for your input, advice and experiences.

I spoke with the lender Im working with today to try and cater more to their algorithm and scoring. These multiple inquires will not hurt how they view my scores. After 120 days these should fall off so I was advised to stop applying for credit to help my home loan purchase in the long run.

In the garden I go!

This bolded part is wrong from a FICO records standpoint - Inquiries stay on your credit report for 2 years. From a FICO scoring standpoint, inquiries affect your score for 1 year but that effect is not linear - in other words, an inquiry that is 1 day old hurts more than an inquiry that is 364 days old. Once they hit their 1-year mark, inquiries have no impact on your FICO score, but lenders can still see them when they pull your credit report (until they drop off at the 2-year mark).

In your case, that particular lender's algorithm may ignore inquiries after 120 days but I assure your FICO score will still be affected and that other lenders will see them.