I was alerted to an inquiry on my credit from a monitoring service run by Experian for AAA members. I had gone through a BK that has since been discharged, and the hard inquiry was from a creditor discharged in the BK. I have not dealt with this creditor in years, and did not apply for anything with them to cause the new inquiry.
I called the creditor, and they stated they had not received info from the court that the BK case was discharged so they did the inquiry to see what the status of the case. I explained that this hurts my credit, and they are willing to fix but do not know how to do this online with their system. I called Experian 2x today and both times, after fighting through the maze of options, got reps who would not accept a dispute of the inquiry and would not help me help the creditor fix their error.
I could not dispute the inquiry online, and EX told me that I have to get the creditor to send me a letter to describe why they pulled the inquiry and that they want it dropped! They also told me to tell the creditor to call their Experian business rep to get help with their system and to explain the difference between hard and soft pulls.
I did a search here on the board, and in reading the FCRA I do not think this is a permissible use of the inquiry.
I asked for a supervisor to escalate at Experian, and they sad someone would call me but I am still waiting for that call. (Still waiting two days later for a callback.)
Since it will take a while to get the letter and to send it to Experian, I wanted to ask if others have experienced this lately, and if there are other steps I should or can take to get this inquiry dropped from my report.
Thanks.
Most recent scores: EX: 650 (Haven't pulled since this happened) EQ: 656 TU: 611
Update - score on EXP dropped 15 points and inquiry still on the report as of today. I received the letter from the creditor on their company letterhead. The letter is requesting that Experian change the Inquiry to a soft pull. I would appreciate any thoughts on if sending this to EX will work and if there is anything else I can do to get this inquiry removed or to get better service from EX. The drop in credit score hurts especially since I need a newer car and want to go shopping for a loan, and now my EX is at 635.
Any suggestions would be welcome - thanks.
