Declined by Citi for too many inquiries - Unknown Fraud alert on EQ

[Anonymous]

Hey All!

My Equifax FICO when at 665 got me 3 sequential declines. When calling the three institutions, they cited information that doesnt reflect my report. Finally it occurred to me to look deeper rather than feeling my score was too inadequate. I found an incomplete fraud alert on my EQ report. When I say incomplete, I mean that generally a fraud alert is supposed to have information such as a phone number that the creditor can call to verify that it is actually me requesting a credit line.

So EQ had a fraud alert unknown to me and therefore it had no associated contact info which I believe in line with FACTA would dead end any credit application submitted and cross checked with EQ.

After contacting EQ to remove this fraud alert, I applied to Citi and their response is that I have too many recent queries.

What can I do at this point? Wait or recon? If the answer is to recon, what posture should I try. In the past, I find myself being as much a robot as the recon employee I am tasked with talking to.

Thank you for listening! I appreciate you time and any suggestion that may come to follow.

[creditwherecreditisdue]

Citi was the wrong bunch to go to after that problem. They are very inquiry sensitive. Yes - call them and explain your situation and exactly how many of those INQ are theirs. The might give you some slack.

Which CRB's are those INQ on, i.e. how many INQ do you show in the last one year and last two years on each CBR?

[Anonymous]

I was a victim of identity theft so Experian and Transunion both have a few pulls for mortgages that are being removed. I however am just recovering from losses that go as far back as 9-11.

I have targeting my apps to hit particular CRBs between July and August.

As far as inquiries over the past two years, prior to July I had only one for a rental property that pulled all 3 agencies. As of July I had no other self initiated inquiries. When my score hit 665 EQ, I thought perhaps I had cleaned up enough to get a few good accounts to begin building a strong positive history hence the 3 apps to Krogers, Cabelas, and one other that escapes me. All denied with seemingly invalid reasons. After those I apped for Macys (got it $100 pulled EX), Home Depot (got it $1000 pulled EQ), Citi Platinum Rew (Declined insufficient history w/ other creditors), Citi Forward (Denied too many recent inquiries). I apped for the last two only because with my best score being EQ the Home Depot (Citi Backed) was the only EQ based approval I got.  Also the CSR that did the identity verification for Home Depot said that they encourage customers to have multiple cards from them.

Part of my cleaning had 12 fraud Verizon accounts removed and a host of derogs that werent mine. In addition, I cleaned up some item that were legitimate.