topic Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent? in General Credit Topics

Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jan 2021 22:39:03 GMT

So I have a credit card with a bank and obviously I consented to them doing a hard inquiry when I opened the card, resulting in a hard inquiry. That was over a year ago now.

Today, I received a notification from multiple sources that I had a new hard inquiry on my TransUnion report, from this same bank. Extremely confused because I hadn't applied anything, I went to contact them about it. I was very concerned because a month ago I had to have my card replaced due to a fraudulent transaction on the card and worried that more than my card details got out there.

After a chat with their represenative, I was told that my credit was reviewed by their high risk team and that my report had been pulled as a result of that, but my card was not flagged and I could use it normally.

My question is: is doing a hard dinquiry out of the blue without any notice or consent on my part even legal? I was under the impression that a bank had to get permission every time they planned to do a hard inquiry. I can't imagine that signing off on a hard inquiry when you open the card provides any kind of permanent consent for as long as you hold an account with that bank, but maybe I'm wrong? This sounds like a horrible relationship to have with a bank if they can just willy nilly pull your credit and throw an inquiry on your report whenever they feel like it.

Do I stand a stand to have the inquiry removed if I dispute it with TransUnion as I did not provide consent?

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

pizza1 — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:15:34 GMT

Welcome to the forums!

Where did you get your "notification" from?

Sometimes places like CS, or CK will send alerts about a 'HP', when really it was a SP (soft pull). Companies will quite frequently do AR's of an account. My reports are full of SP's from most of my lenders.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

barca — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:23:14 GMT

You can check all your 3 credit report from free annual credit https://www.annualcreditreport.com

i think it is free weekly during COVID-19

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:29:58 GMT

I received notifications from both American Express and Capital One credit monitoring services, explicitly notifying me that a new credit inquiry appeared on my TransUnion credit report.

Credit Karma has not notified me of it yet. I've found that they actually tend to lag behind a few days for me.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:19:00 GMT

@barca wrote:
You can check all your 3 credit report from free annual credit https://www.annualcreditreport.com

i think it is free weekly during COVID-19

It is free weekly. I tried doing it for all three. Equifax and Experian were fine, but that bank is listed as a "Regular Inquiry" on my TransUnion report for today.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

RobertEG — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:32:25 GMT

The controlling statute for credit inquiries is FCRA 604, which provides permissible purpose for a creditor to request and receive your credit report for a consumer initiated request for credit without need for additional, explicit consent of the consumer.

The issue is thus how long that period of permissible purpose extends,

Neither the statute per se nor any subsequent regulations or case law establishes any clear period after the request for credit within which the permissible purpose terminates. It is thus subject to a "reasonableness" legal standard of interpretation of the meaning of the statute.

It would not be unreasonable for the permissible purpose to extend a few days, or even a couple of weeks, from the initiation of the request by the consumer, but it would arguably be unreasonable for the period to extend for months, or in the posted scenario, a year.

It would thus be a reasonable interpretation of the permissible purpose grant under section 604 that the permissible purpose would not extend for a year from date of an initiation of request.

You would, in my opinion, have basis for a dispute of the inquiry based on lack of a permissible purpose, and thus no basis for any inquiry under section 604.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 04:11:50 GMT

I would contact the bank and see what the issue is and why they placed a hard inquiry on your report. You did not apply for [additional] credit with them. I would dispute the inquiry. Good post from Robert above as well.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 04:51:39 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I would contact the bank and see what the issue is and why they placed a hard inquiry on your report. You did not apply for [additional] credit with them. I would dispute the inquiry. Good post from Robert above as well.

I already did that when I was first alerted. They told me it was pulled by their high risk team in reviewing my account.

Based on that coupled with TransUnion's own terminology for inquiries (Regular or "hard" inquiries, Promotional inquiries, and Account Review or "soft" inquiries) I am planning to submit a dispute to TransUnion arguing that this was an inappropriate and unauthorized use of a Regular Inquiry. By the bank's own admission, the inquiry was used for the sole purpose of reviewing my existing account and should have been an Account Review Inquiry.

Pulling the TransUnion report really helps there because I was not aware of the specific terminologies of the different inquiry types before, and knowing those really strengthens the case for them having used the wrong inquiry type.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

coldfusion — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 12:11:01 GMT

Starting off by filing a dispute with the CRA is not the best approach. The problem here is with a hard pull being performed without proper cause, not fraud.

You've already confirmed that the bank in fact did perform a hard pull and received an explanation as to why.

Next step should be to send the bank a letter CMRR (Certified Mail Return Receipt) that they performed a hard pull on <date> from Transunion along with your commentary, noting that they performed a hard pull without permissible purpose and you want the hard pull withdrawn, along with a confirmation in writing back from them within 10 business days that they have submitted the request for withdrawal.

If you don't hear back from them within the 10 business days or if they respond with a refusal to request a withdrawal, file an online complaint directly with the FDIC that they performed a hard pull without permissible purpose. Don't bother with the CFPB as this is not within their scope. The bank will respond to the FDIC who will then follow up with you; the bank may also contact you directly.

Keep in mind that a CRA has 30 days to complete a withdrawal that is submitted by the entity that originally made the hard pull.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 13:52:37 GMT

Great info and advice above.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

barca — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 14:08:29 GMT

This is one of the very reasons I have my 3 credit reports frozen 24/7.

of course I know existing lender can still access my report, I would have a stronger case against them.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

MasonK — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 21:38:53 GMT

I read this yesterday and thought it was interesting- lots of great replies and I learned a lot!

Today I was going through old credit reports and noticed that Citifinancial Mortgage had performed an unsolicited hard pull on me in September 2014 just before my foreclosure. I wasn't really aware of how HPs/SPs worked back then so I would not have thought twice seeing it there at the time. Since the FCL happened almost a decade after we bought the house it would not have fallen into any permissible time line, and I know that I wasn't looking to Citi for relief of a second mortgage about to be blown out by the first.

Apparently this might happen a whole lot more than I thought it would. Thanks for sharing, and a good reminder to always know what your report means, not just what it says.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

RobertEG — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 22:17:31 GMT

If you have an existing account with a creditor, that provides permissible purpose under a separate provision of FCRA 604, which entitles current creditors to pull your credit report in order to review and assess your credit.

That is a totally different permissible purpose than for review of a consumer initiated request for grant of new or increased credit.

The FCRA per se does not address the issue of whether such inquiries are coded as hard, meaning they can show in credit reports provided to anyone, or soft, meaning they can only show in a credit report provided to the named consumer.

However, the CRAs have established internal policies that code each differently, with internal account reviews of existing accounts having a separate code that is considered to be a soft inquiry.

If a credit pull that was clearly for the purpose only of internal account review by the creditor and not of review for grant of new or increased credit and yet the inquiry was recorded as hard, and thus showing in credit reports available to others and thus affecting scoring, that likely means that the inquiry was not recorded with the proper inquiry code.

Remedy would be to check with the CRA and establish how it was coded, and if improperly coded, get that coding error corrected.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 09:34:58 GMT

On the recodes in which I’ve been successful, I had to have the creditor/furnisher submit the request to re-code to the CRA. Equifax then re-coded it to soft. Creditor/furnisher was in violation of the FCRA.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 17:58:00 GMT

As an update to this on what ended up happening a month later...

I wrote a letter requesting that the inquiry either be removed or changed to a soft inquiry. The bank initially refused to do anything when I contacted them, claiming that the information was correct and could not be changed. I responded to them with a logical argument that a bank should not be capable of harming their clients on a whim, literally whenever, by placing hard inquiries on their profile and how ridiculous it was for a bank to have such power over their clients. Several weeks passed without a response so I sent a letter directly to TransUnion explaining the situation and requesting they take action themselves.

About a week after that letter, the hard inquiry had been changed to a soft inquiry and another week later I received a follow-up from the bank (not TransUnion) stating that "as a courtesy" they have changed the inquiry to a soft inquiry but insisted that they have the right to do hard inquiries on credit reports whenever they want.

In the end, I am planning to close my card with them. The only benefit I get out of this card not covered by other cards I have is 3% back at Warehouse Clubs, and nowadays I always just order online and pickup so I can just use my BoA Cash Rewards to get 3% back as an online purchase, so this card is pretty useless to me now. And I don't consider the threat of random hard inquiries appearing on my credit report worth keeping this card alive.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

coldfusion — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 18:25:17 GMT

"as a courtesy" often means "we screwed up but won't admit it" but either way congrats on getting an acceptable outcome.

Re: Is consent to obtain your credit report permanent?

HRZ780 — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 23:17:32 GMT

I may have missed this somewhere in the thread, but what bank was this? I'd like to make sure to avoid them if possible.

Congrats on the outcome, too!!