I would venture to say that the "duh"" your received upon asking whether their credit pull would be hard or soft is more the norm than the exception.
Rental agents are normally not credit reporting experts. If they dont know the difference, it is logical to presume that they also have no idea what inquriy codes are, and their difference.
Arising from the discussion is the issue of how any party controls how their inquiry will be coded by the CRAs.
Credit report inquiries are not the reporting of information to a consumer's credit file, and thus are not even covered as to reporting codes in the CRA credit reporting manual.
All that is required under the FCRA is that the inquiree provide the permissible purpose (reference to an authorized purpose under one or more subsections of section 604)
It may very well be that the determination of coding of the inquiry was made entirely by the CRA based on the stated permissible purpose of a "legitimate business need" for the information. Do the CRAs have inquiry codes for a same permissible purpose, one of which is defined as "make it avaliable in the consumer's credit report." while the other is defined as "block it from inclusion?" I kinda doubt it. So how does an inquiree have the ability to report the same permissible purpose as either "hard" or "soft?"
I surely have no idea.
