topic Re: 4 Hard Inquiries on My Report in General Credit Topics

4 Hard Inquiries on My Report

cunningboy — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:45:50 GMT

Hello, after reading many posts on the forum, I still haven't found the answers to my two questions.
- It is said that car loan applications within 14 days count as a single inquiry, but the 4 applications I made on the same day 1.5 years ago still appear as 4 applications on my report. What is meant by a single inquiry?

- My second question is related to the first one. My Experian credit report shows 8 inquiries, 4 of which are for this car loan and the others are for credit card applications. My TransUnion report shows 3 hard inquiries, one of which is for this car loan and the other two are for credit card applications. My Equifax report shows 4 hard inquiries, 3 of which are related to this car loan and the other is a credit card application. If I freeze Experian and only apply for a credit card from banks that check TransUnion and Equifax, will they evaluate my application without seeing the inquiries on Experian? Is this a smart thing to do?

Re: 4 Hard Inquiries on My Report

AndySoCal — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 15:11:49 GMT

@cunningboy For auto loans and mortgages and student loans I think. All these inquires within a 14 day time span are treated as 1 inquiry for FICO scoring purposes. Part of the inquiry data the each bureau has is the permissible purpose code. This code is the reason the credit report was pulled in your case an auto loan. Yes you may have more than one inquiry on the report but they are for the same reason. The above is per credit bureau.

in the future, if you want to prevent this go to your bank or credit union an get pre approved. Then go out and buy the car.

Re: 4 Hard Inquiries on My Report

GZG — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 18:15:41 GMT

@cunningboy wrote:
Hello, after reading many posts on the forum, I still haven't found the answers to my two questions.
- It is said that car loan applications within 14 days count as a single inquiry, but the 4 applications I made on the same day 1.5 years ago still appear as 4 applications on my report. What is meant by a single inquiry?
- My second question is related to the first one. My Experian credit report shows 8 inquiries, 4 of which are for this car loan and the others are for credit card applications. My TransUnion report shows 3 hard inquiries, one of which is for this car loan and the other two are for credit card applications. My Equifax report shows 4 hard inquiries, 3 of which are related to this car loan and the other is a credit card application. If I freeze Experian and only apply for a credit card from banks that check TransUnion and Equifax, will they evaluate my application without seeing the inquiries on Experian? Is this a smart thing to do?

the FICO score only counts them as 1 inquiry, but the reports still keep all of the inquiries from when you allowed your reports be pulled

what ^^^ said, go to a credit union and get pre-approved for a certain amount and use that instead of dealer financing.

you can freeze certain bureaus and then a lender would only be able to pull that report, they wouldn't be able to access the other reports, but some lenders might not fund without seeing those other reports entirely. If a lender needs TransUnion, or Experian and Transunion, no amount of telling them Experian is unfrozen is going to help you.

Re: 4 Hard Inquiries on My Report

cunningboy — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 02:44:18 GMT

So, if I only apply for a credit card from credit institutions that check Transunion or Equifax, will my hard pulls in Experian not show up?

Re: 4 Hard Inquiries on My Report

Vinjints — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 05:02:51 GMT

They would not. Most FI will select one bureau and pull that report. Only the information on that report will be visible. A TU report only shows your TU pulls, etc.

Same would be true for certain cards that don't report to all the bureaus.

Re: 4 Hard Inquiries on My Report

cunningboy — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 05:25:13 GMT

So why does my credit score drop at other credit bureaus when I get a credit card that isn't pull by all of them?

Re: 4 Hard Inquiries on My Report

Patient957 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 13:34:14 GMT

@cunningboy wrote:
So why does my credit score drop at other credit bureaus when I get a credit card that isn't pull by all of them?

There are at least two reasons your score could drop when you open a new cc that have nothing to do with hard pulls:

(1) It reduces your average age metrics (AAoA and AAoRA).

(2) If you haven't opened a new credit card in over 12 months, the new account will cause scorecard reassignment to the "new revolver' scorecard, usually costing around 20 points. Also known as AoYRA < 12 months. (Note that this one is only for clean profiles. Dirty profiles are segmented differently.)

Those are two of the most common reasons. There may be others, but nothing else comes to mind at the moment.

Re: 4 Hard Inquiries on My Report

Vinjints — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 14:26:20 GMT

@cunningboy wrote:
So why does my credit score drop at other credit bureaus when I get a credit card that isn't pull by all of them?

It's two different things. Ideally, you would get a single hard pull for a credit card that then reports the card to all three bureaus. It's not the pull that's dropping other scores on bureaus that weren't pulled, but the new account itself.

So maybe you lose 10 points at Ex for a HP and 20 points for a new account. That similar 20 point drop would be seen on Ex and TU for the new account, but not the 10 point drop.