Did the loan officer lied to us?

[Anonymous]

We went to wamu (Chase now) mortagage loan officer and we  asked for preapproval letter but we made clear with him that we are not ready for mortgage yet we just want to check how much we can borrow and hecne we dont want to run our credit if it is going to affect our credit score.

He said it will not affect credit score to get a preapproval letter.

So we let him run through our credit but later when we checked our credit reports it says" Real estate loan on behalf of Washington Mutual - HL R this inquiry is scheduled to continue on record until Feb. 2011.

And this inquiry is under section of inquiries which is shared with others and to my knowledge any inquiry shared by others hurts your score.

So please let us know if it could have affected our credit score when he gave us preapproval letter?

And company named CBA located at 4 Executive Campus Cherry Hill NJ 08002  has made this inquiry.

Message Edited by vikasintl on 09-16-2009 08:18 AM

Message Edited by vikasintl on 09-16-2009 08:19 AM

[Anonymous]

It may drop your score a couple points, but that till take 30-60 days to hit your FICO score.  Also, if you are serious about a mortgage, shop around now as all inquiries within a couple weeks (some say 30 days) count as one as far as scoring goes.  The FICO drop is not going to be a huge deal.

That said, LO's (in alot of cases) do not know alot about FICO scoring and you should not rely on them to advise you on it.  Some are great at it and some are not.  There is no way to get a pre-approval without running credit though so it is a mute point.  You wanted a pre-approval and you got one.  They might have been able to do a vrebal pre-qualification but those are essentially worthless.  Most realtors will require a pre-approval to even look at houses and most sellers will require a letter of preapproval to look at offers.

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

Anytime that your score is checked by a creditor it has the possibility of dinging your scores a few points, except for the situation where you are applying for a mortgage or auto, then "like" inquiries within a 14 day period will only impact your score once (for the initial inquiry).   The only way you can ever get pre-approved for a mortgage is with a credit check.