I got a Score Watch alert recently that said my EQ FICO score went up 11 points. I logged in to Score Watch to see why, and it said "Applying for new credit has added an inquiry to your credit report." I looked to see what "new credit" I had applied for and which creditor had pulled the report. It said "FACTUAL DATA" had pulled it (actually, the Score Watch alert said FACUTAL DATA, but I assume that's a misspelling).
When I Googled the "5200 Hahns Peak Dr, Loveland, CO" (the full address was "5200 Hahns Peak Dr, 24HCGS005471MS 24HCGS005132MS, Loveland, CO, 805388852" ), the search indicated said address belonged to Kroll Factual Data. From reading the MyFICO Forums, it seems Kroll Factual Data is a third party that can pull tri-merge reports from the CRAs (i.e. a lender doesn't pull the credit report themselves, but gives the person's SSN, DOB, name, etc to Kroll Factual Data, who pulls the report and gives the info to the lender). Kroll Factual data appears to be mainly used by mortgage brokers, mortgage lenders, landlords, other real estate related lenders, and the like.
Three questions come to mind: 1. Why did Kroll Factual Data do a hard pull on my credit report? I have not recently (nor have I ever, for that matter) applied for a mortgage and neither my landlord nor property manager pulls credit reports (they will report to the CRAs if you are late with rent, but I have never been late with that). The only credit I could conceivably been said to have "applied" for recently was a Capital One CLI (I applied for it early last week; the hard inquiry from Kroll Factual Data was on 7-10-08 according to both Score Watch and Amex's CreditSecure; 7-10-08 was a day or two after I actually called Capital One). Anyway, I had called one of the toll-free numbers (877-513-9959) listed in the FatWallet "reasonable Capital One CLI numbers" thread, and I spoke to a representative that assured me that no hard or soft pull would be done, that I had a $300 increase available from CapOne waiting for me, no pull needed. I the asked for said $300 CLI and was granted it, almost instantly.
Does CapOne ever pull from Kroll Factual Data, as far as anyone knows? I just called CapOne back tonight and both the CSR in India and the senior account representative/manager in the US assured me that they pull through all CRAs directly and not through a third party; additionally, she told me that if I had a $300 CLI already waiting for me, no hard credit inquiry should have been done. Does anyone have any experience with CapOne pulling credit inquiries like this?
2. If it wasn't Capital One (and another reason I doubt it might have been was because in my experience, when CapOne DOES do a hard pull, they pull all three CRAs, not just EQ...that's just my experience, though), then who else who wasn't a mortgage lender might use Kroll Factual Data to pull just an EQ report? I did have a problem with AMEX's CreditSecure actually reporting my EQ scores a while back (for EQ, they showed "ND" for "no data" on every tradeline, despite the fact that MyFICO did show that ND was updating the data, except for part of May and June-more on that later in the post), but CreditSecure's CSRs assured me that they would call me with any info or changes they needed to get or make, and I assume them pulling a hard inquiry without my permission would not be allowed.
Finally, I got a letter from Allstate trying to get me to switch my car insurance coverage to them, but that was based on a "pre-screened" type of soft pull (the letter said so, in the print on the back about opting out of prescreened offers), and a soft pull should not generate a "voluntary inquiry" type of hard pull, right?
3. Why did it actually RAISE my EQ FICO score 11 points to have a new hard inquiry on it? Is this in any way related to Score Watch not updating FICO scores for May and much of June (this happened to me, but apparently it was a problem for some other people on this board as well. It appears to have been fixed by now.
Any answers as to why any of the above happened would be most welcome. I am calling Score Watch and CreditSecure first thing Monday morning and trying to see who let Kroll pull my data (hopefully it is just Cap One or Amex), and to take the appropriate steps if some jerk is trying to steal my identity.
edited: OP, hope you don't mind terribly, but I edited your post to add paragraphs. I took my best stab as to where they might go.
It's very difficult to read this much text without the occasional break of white space. --thanks
Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 07-13-2008 01:56 PM