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You can request the removal of hard inquiries from your credit report by pointing out unauthorized checks or going through a formal dispute process with major credit agencies.
Whether you’re looking to buy a house, lease a car, or get a loan, lenders need to check your credit. To do this, they’ll perform a hard inquiry which can temporarily lower your credit score. However, if someone pulls your credit without approval, it may lead to more inquiries that can harm your credit unfairly. In cases like these, you need to know what steps to take to request the removal of inaccurate hard inquiries.
While hard inquiries are common for applying for credit, you’ll want to limit applying for new credit and avoid unauthorized inquiries as their impact stacks up fast. Learning how to navigate hard inquiries won’t just improve your financial savvy — it can also help you spot early signs of fraud or identity theft. To help you along, we’ll explain what hard inquiries are, what causes them, and the steps involved with disputing an unfair or inaccurate hard inquiry.
You can dispute a hard inquiry if you run into evidence of fraudulent pulls or reporting errors. By asking for the removal of these unauthorized inquiries, you protect your credit score. You can go through the dispute in seven steps:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recommends reviewing your credit report at least once a year to note unexpected changes. A sudden drop might indicate that unauthorized pulls impacted your credit. You should also cross reference different credit reports for discrepancies. To help, Experian®, Equifax®, and TransUnion® offer a free credit report once a year from annualcreditreport.com. Because of the pandemic, weekly for a limited time.
There are a few ways to review your credit:
Review the “Hard Inquiries” section of your report for signs of a credit check you didn’t authorize. If you see anything suspicious, be sure to:
Contact the furnishers responsible for illegitimate inquiries. In some cases, these lenders will remove the reports without conducting a formal dispute. To stay prepared, make sure you:
You can file a formal dispute if the lender doesn’t remove the inquiry from your informal request. Even if a furnisher rejects or ignores your request, you have grounds to push back. To get the ball rolling, you should:
You must include all relevant information when drafting your formal dispute letter. This may include:
With all the documentation in order, you can submit your dispute to a credit bureau. While you can contact bureaus by phone, mail, and online submissions leave a stronger paper trail.
For credit disputes by mail:
For credit disputes by online submission:
For credit disputes by phone:
Credit reporting bureaus are required to resolve your dispute within 45 days. During this time, credit agencies will contact furnishers to determine whether the credit check was fraudulent. The Fair Credit Reporting Act also holds that businesses reporting to credit bureaus must investigate disputes.
If a credit agency can’t verify the inquiry, they should remove it from your report. On the other hand, they may keep the inquiry if the furnisher insists it’s valid. If this occurs, you can:
Hard inquiries are records indicating that a furnisher reviewed your credit report as part of a credit check. Typically, lenders conduct a hard inquiry before offering you a loan or credit limit increase. Hard inquiries may drop your credit score by an average of five points. After six months to a year, the impact to credit scores will typically be less.
Hard and soft inquiries provide the same information about your credit. The difference lies in who ordered the credit check and why. The main differences include:
Contrary to popular belief, checking your own credit score won’t lower it. That said, hard inquiries can lower your credit score. If hard inquiries occur without your consent, the Fair Credit Reporting Act allows you to remove those inquiries through a dispute.
Hard inquiries impact 10% of your FICO® credit score. However, its exact impact on the total score depends on:
A few hard inquiries won’t lead to any long-term consequences. Additionally, the amount each hard inquiry drops your score depends on your overall financial health. Most pulls will drop the score by five points or less, but the impact goes up to 10 points. Unless a lender pulls your score multiple times by mistake, you can rest assured the credit drop will only last a few months.
There isn’t a hard and fast limit to the number of hard inquiries you should request. One or two credit pulls will only drop your score by about five points each. After that point, each inquiry may lead to losses of up to 10 points.
As a general rule, don’t apply to lenders en masse. If you handle one reasonable loan application at a time, you’ll maintain a healthy score. Additionally, hard inquiries may only count against you once when shopping for home or auto loans.
Hard inquiries stay on your credit report for around two years. However, they only affect your credit score for six months to a year. Then, two years after the inquiry, they usually age off the report.
Lenders perform hard inquiries to check your financial standing. Depending on your credit score, they may find you more trustworthy and offer loans, credit limit increases, or rentals. In general, there are seven reasons you’ll see hard inquiries on your credit report:
Still have questions about hard inquiry removal and when hard inquiries fall off? We have the answers you need.
If you applied for credit and authorized a hard inquiry from a lender, you can’t remove it from your credit report. Hard inquiries only leave your credit report if:
Removing a hard inquiry can raise your credit score if it’s recent, but it may have no impact at all. While hard inquiries stay on your credit report for around two years, they only affect your score for about six months to a year. So, removing a hard inquiry over a year old may not raise your score.
Because of the timing, a hard inquiry falling off a credit report usually doesn’t boost the score, either. By the time an inquiry ages off, its impact on your credit score has probably passed.
If you dispute an unauthorized hard inquiry, The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives furnishers and credit bureaus 45 days to investigate your dispute. However, the process can take longer, depending on your situation.
While a few hard inquiries won’t tank your credit, they can point to financial risks. Learning the basics of cleaning your credit report and reviewing hard inquiries helps keep you aware of your credit and keep your accounts safe from fraud. While going through a dispute involves some stress, the peace of mind you get from going through the process pays for itself.
With the risk of an unauthorized inquiry, it pays to stay on top of your credit score. You can find the credit monitoring tools you need with ExtraCredit. With our service, catching errors and preventing identity theft has never been easier.
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