Hard Inquiry Ruining Credit

[JGGM]

Sounds like you were at a "buy here pay here" lot, since you mentioned the 100% approved. I would imagine laws vary state by state, but where I am at, they can offer a "cash price" and then a "financed price". Because this type of predatory lending is very high risk, they market the price of the car up and then charge the highest legally allowed interest rate. They can mark the price of the car up because they are lending their money on it, so book value does not matter to them. In the end, if they repo the vehicle, they have not lost any money and they get to re-sell the vehicle in the same manner they sold to the consumer who defaulted.

Generally speaking - someone with your credit scores (even the now lower score) should not even consider buying a car from a place like this. You will get a much better vehicle, finance terms, etc. at a normal dealership (or a Carmax type place). If you're only trying to spending $7k on a car, maybe take out a personal loan and buy from an individual, if that's an option? I feel like in that price range that you're going to get an all-around better car and better deal buying from a private seller. The private seller offering a car for $7k was probably offered $5k to trade in at a dealer that would have re-sold for $9k. So it's really a win-win. Sure you might pay more in interest on a personal loan, but this is still a much better alternative than going to one of the lots you just visited.

I won't chime in on the inquiry reducing your score by 80+ points, others have already commented my thoughts on that.

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Car shopping inquiries are grouped together. Now that you've taken the ding, you shouldn't receive any more for additional car shopping and financing inquiries in the next. 14-30 days, depending on the scoring and/or fico version.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

... my FICO 8 score using data from Experian that is offered by Discover card at no cost ...

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My Discover CC gives TU Fico 08 scores. Odd. 

[randomguy1]

Discover gives TU

creditscorecard.com by Discover (free) gives EX. 

Both FICO 8

[dynamicvb]

I'm with everyone else, a baddie has to have been introduced. There is no way a single inquiry or even several could have dropped one that much even on a thin file. 

[grower1]

My last hard pull dropped my score 3 points. As the others are saying, look for other causes of the score drop. 

[Anonymous]

Looking over my report, the only thing I can see that can be considered negative is the prior auto loan is now paid off, thereby no longer having no loan activity. Also, thanks for the advise of putting a temporary freeze on my credit. Hopefully, within a week, I'll get a vehicle and restore activity in credit reporting.

[coldfusion]

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@DH1988 wrote:

The exact same thing happened to me when I was car shopping. I emailed the car salesman the next day asking why he ran my credit when I specifically asked that he not do a HP and his manager responded apologizing on his behalf and explaining it was a mistake. Okay, great but the inquiry was still on each of my reports. I made a similar post and a myFico commenter suggested I file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  I did that last week -- it's in progress so I don't know if the inquiry will be removed but it's worth a try. You can also write letters to each of your credit bureau's explaining you did not authorize them to run your credit and request that they be removed. 

Hope this helps, goodluck! 

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If the creditor agrees that the hard pull was made by mistake or there was a fraudulent application they can submit a request to the CRA to withdraw it.

CRAs don't remove hard inquiries on the basis of a dispute except in very rare cases unless compelling evidence is presented that there was no permissable purpose for the inquiry.

[Anonymous]

Know this is an old post, but I just recently found out, whenever you do a hard pull with anyone, a car dealer, a mortgage lender, that one time counts at 3 hard inquires, because they do a tri-merge credit pull. They contact Equifax, Experian and Transunion, contacting each credit bureau counts as 1 hard inquiry. We found out by talking to different lenders. My wife went on a spree in a panic to get into a house after we sold ours. Each lender's inquiry hit us 3 times. We hit the "Excessive" area of hard pulls which dings your credit even more. She talked to 6 lenders. 6 times 4 = 24 hard inquiries. We were pretty shocked. Most of that gets wiped if you get pre-approved and buy a house, but if you don't its stuck on your credit report for 2 years. Absolutely stupid.  The credit system is super bias. Im guessing thats why your credit score took such a hit.

[seattletravels]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Know this is an old post, but I just recently found out, whenever you do a hard pull with anyone, a car dealer, a mortgage lender, that one time counts at 3 hard inquires, because they do a tri-merge credit pull. They contact Equifax, Experian and Transunion, contacting each credit bureau counts as 1 hard inquiry. We found out by talking to different lenders. My wife went on a spree in a panic to get into a house after we sold ours. Each lender's inquiry hit us 3 times. We hit the "Excessive" area of hard pulls which dings your credit even more. She talked to 6 lenders. 6 times 4 = 24 hard inquiries. We were pretty shocked. Most of that gets wiped if you get pre-approved and buy a house, but if you don't its stuck on your credit report for 2 years. Absolutely stupid.  The credit system is super bias. Im guessing thats why your credit score took such a hit.

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While this may be true, this isn't considered credit seeking behavior and while you might see multiple inq on your reports,  they're only scored as 1.