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Inquiries

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Inquiries

Do you get points when inquiries drop off your reports and if so, does anyone know how many??
Message 1 of 9
8 REPLIES 8
haulingthescoreup
Moderator Emerita

Re: Inquiries

Depends on how many remaining inqs on that CRA you have, plus other stuff. I've gained maybe 2-3 points when one fell off, especially if it was the last one.

It's tough to say, though, because depending on the timing, there might be a bump from the account itself getting older. Hard to untangle the two.
* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007
Message 2 of 9
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Inquiries


@haulingthescoreup wrote:
Depends on how many remaining inqs on that CRA you have, plus other stuff. I've gained maybe 2-3 points when one fell off, especially if it was the last one.

It's tough to say, though, because depending on the timing, there might be a bump from the account itself getting older. Hard to untangle the two.

 

I thought I had read on the Forum a number of times that FICO doesn't factor in inquiries older than 1 year.  If this is true, and given that inquiries don't drop off for 2 years, why would it influence your FICO score if the last one dropped off?
Message 3 of 9
haulingthescoreup
Moderator Emerita

Re: Inquiries

The FICO formulas tend to clump the number of inquires into batches. So there's no inquiries; there's 1 inquiry (maybe 2); there are (I'm seriously guessing here) 2-4 inquiries; and so forth.

This explains why many of us find that 1 inq doesn't hurt, but the second one does. It appears that sometimes you get a "gimme" for that first inq, and maybe for the second as well, but then you start seeing score changes.

So if all your inqs on a report are older than 12 months except for one, and that one finally turns 12 months old, you might see a boost from no longer having any scorable inqs. But then again, that boost might have come from the account turning 1 year old, so it's hard to separate this out.

At any rate, we do know that there is some sort of clumping factor going on with numbers of inquiries. There isn't a steady progression of score changes occurring with each additional inq; it's more of a lurching pattern, which implies that there are ranges going involving the numbers of inqs. Hope that makes sense. Smiley Tongue

And Happy New Year!


eta: duh me, I could have clarified that I didn't mean when the last inq drops off (as in hits 24 months); I was talking about what happens when an inq goes over 1 year and no longer affects the FICO score. If something is happening when the inq falls off the full reports at two years, I'm confused. Maybe we're looking at the underlying account hitting two years in age, and thus affecting the score, as opposed to the inq finally falling off.
Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 12-31-2009 08:58 PM
* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007
Message 4 of 9
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Inquiries


@haulingthescoreup wrote:
The FICO formulas tend to clump the number of inquires into batches. So there's no inquiries; there's 1 inquiry (maybe 2); there are (I'm seriously guessing here) 2-4 inquiries; and so forth.

This explains why many of us find that 1 inq doesn't hurt, but the second one does. It appears that sometimes you get a "gimme" for that first inq, and maybe for the second as well, but then you start seeing score changes.

So if all your inqs on a report are older than 12 months except for one, and that one finally turns 12 months old, you might see a boost from no longer having any scorable inqs. But then again, that boost might have come from the account turning 1 year old, so it's hard to separate this out.

At any rate, we do know that there is some sort of clumping factor going on with numbers of inquiries. There isn't a steady progression of score changes occurring with each additional inq; it's more of a lurching pattern, which implies that there are ranges going involving the numbers of inqs. Hope that makes sense. Smiley Tongue

And Happy New Year!


eta: duh me, I could have clarified that I didn't mean when the last inq drops off (as in hits 24 months); I was talking about what happens when an inq goes over 1 year and no longer affects the FICO score. If something is happening when the inq falls off the full reports at two years, I'm confused. Maybe we're looking at the underlying account hitting two years in age, and thus affecting the score, as opposed to the inq finally falling off.
Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 12-31-2009 08:58 PM

Thank you! 

 

Got it.  It's clear ... as mud.  Smiley Happy

 

But then prior to your explanation it was even muddier mud.  Anyhow it's not like we'll ever really understand completely how scoring works.

 

Merry Christmas and an App-Free New Year!

Message Edited by O6 on 12-31-2009 09:05 PM
Message 5 of 9
creditwherecreditisdue
Senior Contributor

Re: Inquiries

To make matters even more confusing I do not think the various FICO scoring models (by model or CRB) handle INQ's in the same manner. It is a very good thing that the scoring impact of INQ's is very minor or everybody would be completely loony over the matter.
Message 6 of 9
DI
Super Contributor

Re: Inquiries

This is what credit.com report card says about my TU inquiries:

 

 Congratulations! Right now your credit score is safe from inquiries...and not everyone can make that claim.

Some types of inquiries can lower your credit score if they've occurred in the past 12 months. The good news for you is that you don't have any.

There is really only one important measurement in this category. It's the number of inquiries that are a result of you applying for credit in the past 12 months. Since you don't have any you don't need to worry.

 

This is what I have:  

 

  • 17 total inquiries
  • 0 recent inquiries on record
  • 17 old inquiries on record
  • Last inquiry: 04/2009

So my thoughts are inquiries are not counted after one year and one get one free inquiry. 
Message 7 of 9
creditwherecreditisdue
Senior Contributor

Re: Inquiries


DI wrote:

This is what credit.com report card says about my TU inquiries:

 

 Congratulations! Right now your credit score is safe from inquiries...and not everyone can make that claim.

Some types of inquiries can lower your credit score if they've occurred in the past 12 months. The good news for you is that you don't have any.

There is really only one important measurement in this category. It's the number of inquiries that are a result of you applying for credit in the past 12 months. Since you don't have any you don't need to worry.

 

This is what I have:  

 

  • 17 total inquiries
  • 0 recent inquiries on record
  • 17 old inquiries on record
  • Last inquiry: 04/2009

So my thoughts are inquiries are not counted after one year and one get one free inquiry

Unfortunately the advice dispensed on credit.com is not definitive. credit,com is a FAKO site and not qualified to dispense FICO advice!

Message 8 of 9
haulingthescoreup
Moderator Emerita

Re: Inquiries

Well, it is trying to explain that it's inqs within a year old that are counting, so that's correct.

And I did find that once my app spree inqs were more than a year old, and I added one new account, the inq showed up, but I got a warm fuzzy (positive comment) for inqs not hurting my score. This would make sense --that we're "allowed" one credit app (inquiry) per year without penalty, but if we start going ape, we start losing points.
* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007
Message 9 of 9
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