topic Re: Question about inquiry scoring in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Question about inquiry scoring

Meanmchine — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 05:02:37 GMT

My question is my TU report has no inquiries on it. I am seriously thinking of joining NFCU without applying for any credit product atm. I know NFCU HPs for membership. Is the inquiry coded differently for non-credit related reasons? Does FICO scoring treat these type of inquiries differently then credit seeking inquiries. Can potential future lenders tell the difference?

Thanks everyone

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

Jnbmom — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 05:34:50 GMT

@Meanmchine wrote:
My question is my TU report has no inquiries on it. I am seriously thinking of joining NFCU without applying for any credit product atm. I know NFCU HPs for membership. Is the inquiry coded differently for non-credit related reasons? Does FICO scoring treat these type of inquiries differently then credit seeking inquiries. Can potential future lenders tell the difference?
Thanks everyone

I don't think it is coded differently. My IQ from membership and applying for credit is listed the exact same way on my TU report.

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 05:50:03 GMT

The 2 inquiries I took in May on TU for CU memberships/deposit accounts did not code differently, on the report it just list the institutions like other credit inquiries, no way to tell I only opened deposit accounts.

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

Pikaboo-icu — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 05:57:39 GMT

Many of the DPs for NFCU have shown they stopped HP for membership.

Now, I don't know for certain but that's been the case for many.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Personal-Finance/NFCU-Membership/td-p/5231916

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 06:00:52 GMT

Here is a thread that discusses whether Navy does a hard pull simply for becoming a member. The consensus appears to be no, as long as the person opens a plain savings account. Opening a checking account increases the chance of a hard pull apparently.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Personal-Finance/Navy-Fed-CU-hard-pull-to-join/td-p/5160855/page/6

There are mixed reports nonetheless.

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

RobertEG — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 07:24:49 GMT

When a party requests your credit report from a CRA, they must provide a statement of their permissible purpose for the inquiry, which must be one or more of the reasons set forth under FCRA 604.

The FCRA permits inquiries for business purposes other than the extension of credit to the consumer.

One of the stated permissible purposes is that the inquiry relates to a business transaction for which there is a legitimate business need for the business to review your credit as part of their approval process. Notable examples are apartment rentals, utilities, and bank accounts.

Internal account reviews by creditors pertaining to existing accounts and by debt collectors, which are unrelated to both new credit or business transactions, are also permissible,

Each permissible purpose has its own code, so yes, business purpose inquiries are coded different than consumer-initiated requests for credit.

The permissible purpose code can also result in certain types of inquiries automatically being coded as soft, and thus are not seen by anyone else other than the named consumer, and thus excluded from scoring. Typical examples are internal account reviews and consumer pulls of their own reports.

You can see the codes yourself if you obtain one of the more comprehensive credit reports, such as the government-sanctioned reports obtained via annualcreditreport.com

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

Medic981 — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 11:45:53 GMT

I opened my NFCU share savings account in Sept 2018. NFCU would not complete the process until I thawed my TU bureau file.

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

Meanmchine — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 18:06:21 GMT

Thank you RobertEG

As always, your replies truely illuminating

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 18:13:54 GMT

I took NO HP for joining in October 2018

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 19:06:51 GMT

Fascinating. As we see, there are mixed experiences regarding whether there will be a hard pull simply for joining. About 2/3 of the people who volunteer an answer say that they had no hard pull.

Medic's experience certainly suggests that Navy wanted to pull his report. It's not at all clear that the pull would have been a hard pull. The fact that his reports were frozen would have prevented a soft pull as well as a hard pull.

Some of the people who experience a hard pull also opened a checking account at the same time, which might increase the probability of a hard pull.

Re: Question about inquiry scoring

Meanmchine — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 21:48:55 GMT

For those of you who joined NFCU with a SP, did you open a savings account or checking account