Please explain how to recode hard pulls

[CBrent]

In the process of renting my new apartment, the property management company hard-pulled my credit report. While I know that's permissible, I was told the pull would be soft, and I'd like to ask the company to recode so that the hard pull appears as a soft pull on my reports.  When I call the company, what should I tell them if they say they don't understand what I'm asking them to do? Will they likely know about the codes and how to change them? It's a major property management company in a relatively large city. 

The inquiry doesn't appear to have affected my score, though, so perhaps this isn't even important enough to pursue. 

[Anonymous]

What does the actual hard pull say as to who pulled the file? Here in the Portland area they use a third party service to actually do the credit pulls, and thats whats reflected in the reports. If a service was used, thats who you would need to contact for requesting the recode.

How many hard pulls do you have currently?

[CBrent]

Thank you.  Actually, it doesn't appear on my credit reports after all.   I received an alert from MyFICO on March 27 that a new inquiry appeared on my Experian report, however I don't see it on my report which I purchased just a week ago.  So I guess it was a soft pull.  I didn't know MyFICO sent alerts for soft pulls. 

[CBrent]

But since this thread will probably show up in future searches by people needing to know how to recode, I'd still like to know. Should someone just call the agency listed on the report and ask them to recode?

[Anonymous]

Its possible they initially put it through as a hard pull and quickly recoded it as soft themselves, prior to you pulling it.

[gdale6]

The reporting entity has to recode the inquiry, as stated could have been hard causing the notice of and then they recoded it to a soft, there is no credit monitoring service I know of that notifies about SPs.

[RobertEG]

As to how the coding and recoding from hard to soft occurs, that is one of the deep, dark mysteries of the system.

The FCRA never mentions hard of soft inquiries, and there are no federal regulations.

The only second-hand reference to so-called soft pulls in the prohibition of promotional inquiries used to obtain a listing of consumer names from a CRA for making an unsolicited offer for credit.  The FCRA explicitly prevents such inquiries from being included in any credit report made available to anyone other than the consumer.

The coding of inquiries is an internal procedure handled by the CRAs.  That procedure is not outlined or explained in the standard CRA credit reporitng manual, as inquiries are not the reporting of information to a consumer's file, they are the opposite.....they are requests to see what others have reported.

Taking, for example, a normal inquiry related to a consumer-initiated request for credit.  Such inquiries have clear permissible purpose under the FCRA, and can be coded as a so-called hard inquiry.  If the creditor then wishes to recode as a so-called soft inquiry, there are no regs or procedures, at least to my knowledge, explaining how that is done.

Are there, for instance, codes that state  "consumer-initiated request for credit, but hide this inquiry from others...."?

That is totally subjective, and it is questinable as to why a CRA would want to or permit the hiding of inquiries that otherwise are the primary reason why inquires are shown in consumer credit reports. 

I have never seen a published explantion of credit inquiry coding procedures with the CRAs.

Hopefully, someone has reference to such a publication.............