Hard inquiries

[Anonymous]

If I authorize a hard inquiry, does my credit cards last reported balance reflect in the report? Or does my credit cards current balance as of the date of inquiry authorization reflect in the report?

[Gidgetmom]

I believe it's the last reported balance.

[Anonymous]

Only whatever is currently being reported. If your CC reports to whatever bureau on the 15th and you authorize an inquiry on the 14th, it'll show last months reported amount. If you authorize it on the 16th then it'll report whatever was reported on the 15th. Those dates are just examples, each creditor has their own thing and it's never directly related to what is occurring in your account at that exact moment.

[RobertEG]

Most inquiries are not based on a consumer authorization.   The FCRA is structured to avoid the need for consumer authorization for a copy of their credit report if the requesting party has one or more of the "permissible purposes" listed under FCRA 604.  In that way, processing of consumer requests for credit or business transactions can proceed without any need for the party to first obtain consumer authorization.

More specifically, as an example, once a consumer has initiated a request for credit, the creditor can pull their credit report at any time until they have completed their determination of whether to grant the request.  They do not need any consumer authorization, and there is no date of inquiry authorization.

The creditor will receive a credit report from the CRA that is based on the content of the CRA files as of the date the creditor initiates the inquiry.

[Thomas_Thumb]

A hard inquiry associated with a CLI request shows up almost instantly on the CRA report. I suspect the same is true for any HP.

I had a HP on TU 10/23 and I was notified that I received an HP within hours from CK. However, the inquiry did not show on my CK report until the next scheduled report refresh. When my CK report did resfesh a few days later the inquiry was there and score dropped 3 points. However, the increased CL did not show on the report although it showed on when I checked my CC account on-line. As with balances, CLs are updated and sent to CRAs as part of monthly statement data.

[side note - it does appear some CCs will update a change to zero balance outside of the monthly statement date].

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Only whatever is currently being reported. If your CC reports to whatever bureau on the 15th and you authorize an inquiry on the 14th, it'll show last months reported amount. If you authorize it on the 16th then it'll report whatever was reported on the 15th. Those dates are just examples, each creditor has their own thing and it's never directly related to what is occurring in your account at that exact moment.

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Nice response.  Do bear in mind that the text highlighted in blue is not quite right, because it often takes a number of days after the creditor reports to the bureau for the new balance to materialize in the bureau's database.  Indeed, it can sometimes take a week.  Thus if the creditor pulls on the 16th (in the example above) it is likely that the creditor will get see the balance that was reported 31 days ago.