How many inquiries is too much?

[tmacar]

Just read your post, although it was from some time ago. Be aware that for car loans and home loans, inquiries made within 2 weeks of each other are supposed to be treated as 1 inquiry, because people often shop for the best rate. You should contact both the credit report company and the company that turned you down to find out who is making the error.

Something else useful - You can dispute an inquiry just like you can dispute anything else on your report. Dispute them based on the fact that you not only never authorized all those inquiries, you never even knew they were being made. In most cases, creditors do not bother even responding to a dispute about whether or not they had made an authorized inquiry. And if they don't respond, the inquiry comes off your report.

The one problem with this is that bureaus, especially Experian, sometimes do not want to process disputes about inquiries. They may tell you that an inquiry simply means that someone checked your credit, that if they hadn't in fact checked your credit there would be no record of an inquiry, and that there is therefore nothing to dispute.

If they try to pull that one, point out that too many inquiries hurt your score because it is assumed you applied for credit too often, that you DID NOT make all those applications, and that the inquiries were made without your authorization or even knowledge, and that the FCRA requires that they investigate such disputes.

[Anonymous]

I am wondering what can I expect my score to be at when I do receive a score? I am new to credit and just started apping last month, unfortunately I have apped WaY too much (like 25 apps). Being that I had no credit when I started apping, will this affect my score when I finally get one? I was approved for about 5 cards 3 cc's and 2 retail. I was mostly denied due to lack of credit or no revolving credit. I was thinking that I could go grab a burger or something on them to keep my UTIL low and then pay in full for 6 months and then maybe I will start out with a good score, what do you think? Can I start out in the high 600's or have I already threw that out the window being that I have apped so much already?

And FYI, I vow to not app again until late 2009, maybe 2010!

[Anonymous]

denetra9090,

Your credit score is likely low right now but that is simply because you have no extended account length or payment history. Within a year your scores should pass 680 and within 2 years, with perfect payment history you could hit 720. I don't recommend any more accounts right now anyway, 5 revolvers is plenty. When you NEED an auto loan, that will only help to increase your score. If you want a rewards card in a few years when you have a couple years of history behind you then you will be in great shape.

[Anonymous]

This directly addresses a question I have had. I'm a 23-year-old student in grad school (3 more years til I graduate) with 1 CC (Visa) with a limit of $11,250. I have two current loans totaling $14,500 and two loans from undergrad that are paid off. I just checked my FICO score and it is 751 (down from 772 last July, prior to the two current loans). I also own my car outright. I'm wondering if I should get a second CC, and if so what company I should go with. Obviously my CL is more than fine now but I would like to take some proactive steps to continue my good credit scores. Any suggestions? Edited to add: I will definitely be taking out two or three more loans next fall, and probably the same in fall 2009. Don't know if that matters...

Message Edited by pez478 on 05-06-2008 07:43 PM

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pez,

The new loans will not help your credit mix as you already have loans and they will ding your average age....the balances likely won't ding you too much. You probably lost the 20 points on the loss of account age as your lone card's length lost its positive effect on your score to some degree.

If you don't plan on buying a house in the next 2 years I recommend you obtain 1 store card you will use (it will boost your mix points) and a rewards card or two that you would use as well. Avoid annual fees and look for something that will grow with you. You already have one semi-high CL so another lender will likely give you something respectable (and the 750 score won't hurt either!). These moves will tank your age further now, and will likely hurt your score in the next 6 months, but after that time you should bounce back and be in great shape in 2-3 years.

[Lucid08]

Just trying to understand all of thiis, but from what experience I have recently, inquiries are weighted differently by creditors than how they are used to determine your FICO scores.

By that I mean that yes, inquiries affect your score, but lenders look at the dates and actual number of inquiries over a predetermined period of time for approval purposes- from what I understand. So if your score was 700 with -no- inquiries on your CR's, and it fell to say 690 with 4 hard pulls showing, the new score of 690 wouldnt be as much of an disapproval factor moreso than the 4 actual inquiries would when the creditor does its "overall" assesement on whether to approve or disapprove an application.

So from my understanding, your FICO score dropping from inquiries doesnt affect approval or disapproval as much as how the credit issuers themselves internally weigh inquiries. Else they wouldnt have a need to actually list on a disapproval letter that a person was declined for "too many recent inquiries"...right?

[Anonymous]

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ChrisGA43 wrote:
Just trying to understand all of thiis, but from what experience I have recently, inquiries are weighted differently by creditors than how they are used to determine your FICO scores.

By that I mean that yes, inquiries affect your score, but lenders look at the dates and actual number of inquiries over a predetermined period of time for approval purposes- from what I understand. So if your score was 700 with -no- inquiries on your CR's, and it fell to say 690 with 4 hard pulls showing, the new score of 690 wouldnt be as much of an disapproval factor moreso than the 4 actual inquiries would when the creditor does its "overall" assesement on whether to approve or disapprove an application.

So from my understanding, your FICO score dropping from inquiries doesnt affect approval or disapproval as much as how the credit issuers themselves internally weigh inquiries. Else they wouldnt have a need to actually list on a disapproval letter that a person was declined for "too many recent inquiries"...right?

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Exactly right!

This also holds true for auto and mortgage inquiries which are deduplicated for FICO scoring purposes as long as they occur within a certain window of time.  Even if they are deduplicated so that FICO sees them as one inquiry, they will still show as individual inquiries on a report, and it would still be possible for creditors to deny new credit based on "too many inquiries."

[poet]

Yeah--and I just checked my EQ file, which shows an insane **19** inquiries in the past two years, up from two before I went car-shopping last week. What is this line about "all inquiries will be treated as a single," then?... Not like I'll be hunting for any more credit cards in the next two years, but this is an AWFUL lot. And this doesn't include the Macy's card I added to lower my UTIL (gulp).

[haulingthescoreup]

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@poet wrote:

Yeah--and I just checked my EQ file, which shows an insane **19** inquiries in the past two years, up from two before I went car-shopping last week. What is this line about "all inquiries will be treated as a single," then?... Not like I'll be hunting for any more credit cards in the next two years, but this is an AWFUL lot. And this doesn't include the Macy's card I added to lower my UTIL (gulp).

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All the inqs display, but for scoring purposes, those within a certain time frame are scored as if they were just one.

Sort of similar to the fact that inqs display for two years, but are only scored for one.

eta: cna't splel

[Anonymous]

I have had too many inquiries in the past year but want to transfer balance from a high interest cc. Should I keep shopping for low interest cc's that will inquire about my credit or just hold out another year?

[Guava]

How many is too much? If you can, I'd wait another year. Interest rate depends also on other things on your credit profile like any derogatives, late payment, AAoA, etc.