6-7 Inq's In One Day - Only 3 Point Loss?

[jbh]

hey,

My EQ was untouched for years. Then I decided to open up some CU accounts (bad idea) and then I finally got my care credit, store card/etc. Scorewatch only noticed, after they were logged, a 3 point drop. How was it only 3 points?

[haulingthescoreup]

- sometimes there's a lag in the score damage of several days after the inqs display

- it could be that the benefit from opening them mostly canceled out the damage from the inqs

It can be SO hard to isolate one single cause of a FICO score change.

[jbh]

No kidding. Btw, the inquiries were from last monday - last friday. I assumed scorewatch gave the last update of dropped points from inq's but I could certainly be wrong.

[haulingthescoreup]

I remember congratulating myself for dodging the hard inqs bullet, because I had pulled my scores, with the inqs showing, and no reaction. I think about 5 days later I lost the points and got the "seeking credit" scolding.

Just as likely though, is you did something like gain +7 for broadening your credit profile and lose -10 for the inqs, for a net loss of -3. And this is not considering other wacko things that might have been going on at the same time, with other accounts having birthdays, or util changes, or sun spots or something.

My EQ graph has been pretty flat over the last 6 months, but there are a shocking number of dots on it representing score alerts and my score pulls. One day, by golly, it will start moving again.

[Anonymous]

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haulingthescoreup wrote: - sometimes there's a lag in the score damage of several days after the inqs display

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Bummer, didn't wanna see that. Scorewatch picked up an inquiry a week ago. No score change yet. I was hoping it would stay that way 'cause I imagine I'll get dinged when the account shows up.

[haulingthescoreup]

You don't always get a ding for every single inq. For instance, if you already have two on that CRA, you might get another one free before getting hit again.

Or you could be one of those with 80 inq's, and you long ago melted down that part of the scoring formula, lol. It's nice to know that at some point, you can bottom out on scoring, and nothing you can do in terms of getting more inqs can possibly make it any worse.

[jbh]

Interesting. I had only 3 and have like 10 now in EQ. With all 3 reports I doubt I have more than 25 and some were collection hard inquiries

[Anonymous]

My thought is that 5-7 inquiries do not hurt you if you've been clean for a year or more -or, if they do, only minimally. Anything above 7 will hurt.   

[jbh]

Yeah, before adding like 10 inq's, I had 3 in 2 years and I am done for at least 6 months to another year. That said, inq's hurt a bit but I lost 15/16 points for 2 new accounts.

My q is if I will gain them back quickly if I keep util low or does it take a long time? My average age of accounts was 2+ years and is now 1+ year.