Had an two individuals who had an AmEx account go bad over 13 years ago and to whom this day AmEx was been softing a dozen times per month. Since softing isn't really detrimental to their credit health and, more importantly, AmEx probably does have permissible purpose (with one of the two individuals), there was really no need to go after AmEx. However, on both individuals AmEx decided to pull 2+ a hard inquiries and that is another story.
I contacted AmEx and found out that the inquiries were acually from their outsourced collections department in Nebraska although the inquiries themselves were entitled "AmEx." Also, AmEx stated that their policy is not to pull a hard inquiry for any event that is not a recently-initiated consumer credit operation. I contacted their Nebraska outsourced collections and they were pretty nice about it, but insisted they had PP even for a hard inquiry. Even so, they said they'd look into the matter further. After about two weeks I received a call from an individual at the CA and very beligerently and a-holisticly stated they would continue with hard inquiries whenever they wanted until the debt was finally paid. Pointing out that one individual had the debt discharged in bankruptcy and that I was recording the conversation for use in preparing to file suit against them, they agreed to nuke her hard inquiries. For the other, I was told "Hell, no!"
I have heard countless times on this forum that PP exists for as long as it takes for the debt to be repaid (or discharged in bankruptcy) and it just didn't wash. I can understand a soft, but a hard inquiry is generally reserved for a recent credit application with specific consumer approval. That a creditor can inflict damage via a hard inquiry 13+ years after DOFD just doesn't cut it.
I spoke directly with staff counsel at the FTC Division of Financial Practices which reaffirmed my suspicions. Although the FDCPA does not distinguish between hard and soft inquiries because at the time of passage that was not yet an important issue, the clear Congessional intent and committee records indicate that creditors should have no way to adversely affect a creditor's credit report after the SOL has run and, especially, after the debt is no longer able to be reported. It goes without saying that placing a hard inquiry when a soft will function as well is merely a tool creditors use to inflict injury.
So a dispute was filed with the CRA, which was promptly denied. And an intent to sue notice was sent to the CA as well as the CRA. The inquiries were deleted and both the CA, AmEx and the CRA have indicated that they will reimburse incurred legal expenses.
The bottom line is that the OC or a CA does not have permissible purpose -- at least for hard inquiries -- once the reporting period and the SOL has expired.
