How long do creditors look at inquiries for

[accjohn1990]

I have too many inquiries at this point to get approved for most cards.  I have 55 in two years, 20 in the last year.  Do creditors look at these for 6 months, 1 year, or the full 2 years?

[Anonymous]

55 inquiries?  Wow.  How did that happen?

BTW, are you saying that one of the three bureaus has 55 listed on it?  That's very different than having the inquiries spread out evenly across all three bureaus.  Remember that in practice most prospective creditors will only pull one of your three reports.

The answer to your question is as follows:

(1)  The various FICO scoring models ignore all inquiries that are over 365 days old.  So as far as your FICO score goes, everything older than a year doesn't matter.

(2)  Some lenders or CC issuers also look at the number of inquiries apart from the score.  (Any creditor can consider additional factors in its decisions, or weight existing factors more heavily.)  A mortgage lender, for example, might get worried by seeing 55 inquiries in the last two years -- certainly they might ask you to explain.

Lenders or CC issuers are free to use as a separate metric: inquiries in the last 90 days, last six months, last year, last two years.  Totally up to them.

[accjohn1990]

The inquiries are the result of trying to get cards i wasnt suitable for at the time.  My score was way to low.  Since then i have learned to search for recommended scores for cards and use prequalification tools.  

[Anonymous]

First of all, which cards do you have open right now?  Name them all.

Secondly, if the cards you have are good cards, you really should consider gardening until those inquiries are not just unscoreable (1 year) but gone for good (2 years) so you can get a good idea of what your FICO score is without all the new account clutter, young accounts, and inquiries.

If you can report your utilization to FICO's preference range, you can see what your FICO baseline is and once you get there, you can probably start qualifying for significantly better cards.

Going on app sprees while you're rebuilding can also have a huge negative effect on your short term credit cards themselves.  If Chase sees you have a low score, even if they approve you, they may keep you in toy card hell for years.

[Anonymous]

55 inquiries??!?!??!?! Good heavens.

That’s insane.

Is that one report or all 3? Still CRAZY HIGH, even if all 3.

FICO scores will be most affected for 6 months.

Lenders will turn you down for prime cards for at least a year for too many inquiries.

Any manual reviews will see, and often deny, you for 2 years for all those inquiries.

2 or more inquiries on one credit report is seen as ‘seeking a lot of new credit’... let alone 55. Holy Pete.

Don’t apply to anything else for at least a year! At least! Stop using pre-qualification tools. Seriously, even if you pass the pre-qualification, lenders aren’t going to want to approve you with so many inquiries. Even if you manage to open a new account, lenders often review credit files manually, and will easily shut down any new cards you get after they see all those inquiries.

Don’t do anything other than gardening your current cards for at least 1-2 years. 

[accjohn1990]

That is good advice Okala.  I try to garden.  I have been improving slightly lately, my applications are down for the last three months compared to my overall 2 year rate

[pizza1]

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wrote:

55 inquiries?  Wow.  How did that happen?

BTW, are you saying that one of the three bureaus has 55 listed on it?  That's very different than having the inquiries spread out evenly across all three bureaus.  Remember that in practice most prospective creditors will only pull one of your three reports.

The answer to your question is as follows:

(1)  The various FICO scoring models ignore all inquiries that are over 365 days old.  So as far as your FICO score goes, everything older than a year doesn't matter.

(2)  Some lenders or CC issuers also look at the number of inquiries apart from the score.  (Any creditor can consider additional factors in its decisions, or weight existing factors more heavily.)  A mortgage lender, for example, might get worried by seeing 55 inquiries in the last two years -- certainly they might ask you to explain.

Lenders or CC issuers are free to use as a separate metric: inquiries in the last 90 days, last six months, last year, last two years.  Totally up to them.

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I think we all know how this happens, lol. (cough). Several of us here on the forums have that amount, if not more, so its not  that uncommon these days to see that.  Im never surprised by seeing those numbers...mainly because mine are about the same,  

[JVille]

Maybe it’s time to just give it a rest?

[Anonymous]

Why stop apping now? You have already come so far.

[Anonymous]

As far as I know sometimes the inquiries are counting the soft pulls too, unless you are strictly talking about hard pulls??