Can a company do a Hard Pull on your credit without your consent?

[Anonymous]

I am wondering if a company can do a hard pull on your credit without your consent and would it be worth it to lock your credit file with the 3 bureaus? I know I applied for a Wells Fargo line of credit last month and one Hard Pull from them sent me from a 733 to a 723 . I iniated that pull however it got me thinking what if a company could do this without your consent. Thanks

[Anonymous]

Yes and No. No in the sense that "the law" says that they need a "Permissable Purpose" to perform a credit inquiry. No in the sense that if you are in the United States you are screwed. The laws here in the US target the companies and not the consumer. Meaning, they can make up a reason or do not need a reason at all to run a illegal credit check. This happened to my sister when she applied for a car loan and on the document she signed it stated she was ONLY approving a check for Ford Motor Credit Company and that was it. 

The dealership then illegally ran her through 10 banks and she got like 12 inquires. She disputed them and lost. She disputed through the lenders and they would not remove them. She even filed a CFPB and they sided with the "Data Furnisher". She had to resort to a small claims lawsuit and actually won several thousand dollars with my help lol but it is so so sad in this country that companies are in control of our credit and the laws for the most part. 

[RobertEG]

The FCRA is constructed to provide permission for parties to pull your credit report without your express permission if it is for one or more of the reasons set forth in FCRA 604.  Otherwise, the consideration of credit and business transctions would come to a crawl if express consumer permission was required for every credit inquiry.

The most common type of permissible purpose sanctioned under FCRA 604 is when a consumer initiates a request for credti or insurance.

The fact that the consumer initiated the request is the key.

Yes, they can make multiple inquiries.  FICO recognizes that conumers traditionally shop around for higher level crediit, which includes auto and mortgage loans.

While they all show in your credit report, the FICO scoring algorithm only counts inquiries for auto or mortgage loans as a single inquiry if made within a sliding window, which varies by scoring model between 15-45 days width.  Thus, the case of auto-related inquires, you are not being dinged by the numerous mutliple nquiries.

[Anonymous]

RobertEG you are right and wrong. No company should have the authoriy to run multiple inquires without my consent. That is the whole problem the law is intended not for the consumer but for the companies. Also, FICO will only take the multiples as one IF AND ONLY IF they were coded right. My sisters inquires were not coded right because each one counted as one and her FICO score dropped by 58 points on average. So this whole lie that they count as one is not true. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

RobertEG you are right and wrong. No company should have the authoriy to run multiple inquires without my consent. That is the whole problem the law is intended not for the consumer but for the companies. Also, FICO will only take the multiples as one IF AND ONLY IF they were coded right. My sisters inquires were not coded right because each one counted as one and her FICO score dropped by 58 points on average. So this whole lie that they count as one is not true. 

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So in an effort to secure your score from dropping should you lock your credit file with all 3 bureaus where they have to get permission before they can run your credit?

[Anonymous]

Companies do SPs all the time. Your creditors do SPs routinely. I'm not familiar with companies doing random HPs. 

Freezing your credit file can help to avoid fraud and spread out HPs. If you freeze a file and a new creditor wants it, they will tell you. There is something about credit freeze being a taboo subject here, I'm not sure what the nature of the taboo is. 

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am wondering if a company can do a hard pull on your credit without your consent and would it be worth it to lock your credit file with the 3 bureaus? I know I applied for a Wells Fargo line of credit last month and one Hard Pull from them sent me from a 733 to a 723 . I iniated that pull however it got me thinking what if a company could do this without your consent. Thanks

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You are correct.  If you freeze your reports, NOBODY can do an HP on your reports.  Nobody.

I recommend that people freeze their reports when they know they will not be apping for anything for an extended period of time.  It costs about $10 per bureau to freeze the reports, and well worth it in my view -- the cost of one month of credit monitoring.

Also people should freeze their children's reports until the kids are 18 and in control.  And if you have financing lined up for your car, keep your reports frozen when you go to buy the car and DO NOT give your social security number to anyone at the dealer.  They will try to make you think it is requried for the sale.   That is a lie.  Don't fall for it.

[Anonymous]

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am wondering if a company can do a hard pull on your credit without your consent and would it be worth it to lock your credit file with the 3 bureaus? I know I applied for a Wells Fargo line of credit last month and one Hard Pull from them sent me from a 733 to a 723 . I iniated that pull however it got me thinking what if a company could do this without your consent. Thanks

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You are correct.  If you freeze your reports, NOBODY can do an HP on your reports.  Nobody.

I recommend that people freeze their reports when they know they will not be apping for anything for an extended period of time.  It costs about $10 per bureau to freeze the reports, and well worth it in my view -- the cost of one month of credit monitoring.

Also people should freeze their children's reports until the kids are 18 and in control.  And if you have financing lined up for your car, keep your reports frozen when you go to buy the car and DO NOT give your social security number to anyone at the dealer.  They will try to make you think it is requried for the sale.   That is a lie.  Don't fall for it.

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Thank you , what is the best site to freeze all 3 reports? Thanks

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am wondering if a company can do a hard pull on your credit without your consent and would it be worth it to lock your credit file with the 3 bureaus? I know I applied for a Wells Fargo line of credit last month and one Hard Pull from them sent me from a 733 to a 723 . I iniated that pull however it got me thinking what if a company could do this without your consent. Thanks

---

You are correct.  If you freeze your reports, NOBODY can do an HP on your reports.  Nobody.

I recommend that people freeze their reports when they know they will not be apping for anything for an extended period of time.  It costs about $10 per bureau to freeze the reports, and well worth it in my view -- the cost of one month of credit monitoring.

Also people should freeze their children's reports until the kids are 18 and in control.  And if you have financing lined up for your car, keep your reports frozen when you go to buy the car and DO NOT give your social security number to anyone at the dealer.  They will try to make you think it is requried for the sale.   That is a lie.  Don't fall for it.

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Thank you , what is the best site to freeze all 3 reports? Thanks

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You have to do it with each of the three separately through their own sites.  Just Google "Experian freeze" etc.

[gdale6]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Companies do SPs all the time. Your creditors do SPs routinely. I'm not familiar with companies doing random HPs. 

Freezing your credit file can help to avoid fraud and spread out HPs. If you freeze a file and a new creditor wants it, they will tell you. There is something about credit freeze being a taboo subject here, I'm not sure what the nature of the taboo is. 

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The taboo is advocation of freezing one or more CRA(s) in an effort to get a creditor to pull another CRA.