What is “Too Many Inquires”?

[Anonymous]

I’m sure this is a broad question. And I’m sure it’s been asked before.

I’d like to ask again to hear peoples opinion and feedback and experiences. The main reason for my question, is geared towards feeling our credit card offer is that I would like for myself.

At what point do you say no more and garden?

[Anonymous]

Sometimes  The answer to that question depends on what it is you’re trying to accomplish for example if you’re trying to get a chase card and you know that Chase has inquiry and time rules 5/24  then you may need to go into the garden in order to actually make your profile fit that rule. In other cases the answer to that may be found in the lenders responses to you As you seek more credit.  For example if you start Getting declined and the response from the creditors is too many inquiries or not enough age on your accounts Then it is best to be going to the garden.  I don’t think there is a one size fits all answer to your question because there are people on here they have a lot of inquiries that are still able to get it approved so it’s actually situational and based on the individuals profile for example I’m on my way to the garden why because the  creditors are starting to  decline my apps for to many inquiries and short age of accounts both of these reasons compliment each other to get me declined if my profile had stronger age of accounts then the amount of inquiries matters a little less.  to them it looks like someone new to credit applying to much to soon . In this game experience or age of accounts plays a significant role I have had 3 lenders say this to me in the last week, cap1, Amex, and Walmart so in this case the creditors are forcing me to garden otherwise I will waste HP and keep getting denied.

Now one obvious answer would be if there are no longer any credit products that you seek or feel you need in your strategy Then enough is enough In the garden we go...

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

The point you cut it off depends on what your goals are. Depending on who they're with, you could open 10-15 tradelines in a short period of time. I added 9 cards, 1 credit union, and 3 installment loans in a 1 year period. The last 2 cards were added with 14 existing inquiries. Was it a good idea? Probably not. Had I spaced them out I probably would have gotten better starting limits instead of the toy ones I got. Also, I'v come to a point where I'm not getting CLIs because of too many inquiries. But, I could open more accounts if I wanted to. The question for me now is do I keep loading up on accounts to get the hits for AoYA over with, or let them grow.  Looking back, I wish I had spaced them out more.

[Anonymous]

There's no such thing as "too many inquiries."

What the statement should read is "too many inquiries relative to the rest of your profile."

Cornelius and Rupert may both apply for the same exact credit product.  Cornelius has 6 inquiries and gets denied for the product for "too many inquiries" while Rupert has 19 inquiries and gets approved for the product.  Clearly inquiries weren't the real reason Cornelius was denied, or Rupert would have also been denied.  What you don't know is that Cornelius simply has a weaker profile... perhaps it's thin or young, has high utilization, is littered with late payments, etc.  Rupert may have an aged/thick file that's squeaky clean and perhaps many of his inquiries have been for reasons outside of new accounts, making them less important.

Anyway, the bottom line is that you need to weigh your inquiries relative to the rest of your profile and go from there.

[Shooting-For-800]

5

[Anonymous]

Unless they're spread out over time, right. lol

I'm at 5-6 now, but most are over the 1 year mark except one that's more recent.

[Anonymous]

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@Shooting-For-800 wrote:

5

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I like this as a universal answer.

[pinkandgrey]

That’s a very subjective question. As for lenders, some balk at 3 and some don’t bat an eye at 12. As for our personal preferences, I cringe at my own 7-8 per bureau but there are people who have 30+. Approval for cards will be dependent on many things such as income and credit length, but a lot of inqs is a common catch-all denial reason.

[Anonymous]

Too many inquiries is just a fluff denial reason IMO the majority of the time when the "real" reason is quite often something else.  Evidence to support this was given in my hypothetical situation post above, but can be found in the approvals section of this forum all the time.  Someone posts about getting denied for too many inquiries for a product, then 5 other people chime in that they were approved for the same product with more inquiries present.  Proof that too many inquiries was a BS denial reason for the person starting such a thread.

Again, it comes down to too many inquiries relative to the rest of a profile.

[800FICOGoal]

 For me personally, I prefer no more than three with two being over 12 months old.