Many people review their credit reports and spot the automated list of issues that hurt their credit scores. If you had inquiries in the past six months this list will inevitably include “too many inquiries“. Our customers often express concern over the inquiries on their reports, but in many cases the inquiries have little bearing on their credit scores.
Soft and Hard Inquiries
There are two types of credit inquiries, soft and hard. Soft inquiries have no effect on your credit at all and occur when potential creditors check your credit before sending you an unsolicited offer of credit. Soft inquiries also occur when existing lenders conduct periodic reviews, and when you check your own credit. Hard inquiries, on the other hand will have an impact on your credit score and occur primarily when you apply for new credit. There are two special inquiry exceptions that are worth looking at.
Mortgage and Automobile Exceptions
A number of years ago Fair Isaac Corp modified the FICO scoring model to accommodate consumers who shop for home mortgages and automobiles. This makes sense. Both of these purchases are significant and shopping for financing is to be expected. As a result of the FICO modification you may have as many mortgage or automobile inquiries as you wish in any forty-five day period and they only count as one inquiry for your credit score.
Identity Theft Warning
There is one special credit repair case you should be alert for. If you see a lender inquiry that you do not recognize this may come from an attempt at identity theft. We suggest that you do not ignore unrecognized lender inquiries. A quick call to the lender will determine if there has been an unauthorized attempt to obtain credit in your name.
Credit Repair Help
If you are in our credit repair program we will identify the specific inquiries that are impacting your credit scores, but it is usually the case that our initial efforts are best spent on more important issues. Once we have cleared up the more significant problems we always look back at inquiries to make sure we have provided the optimal credit repair results. If you have any questions about inquiries, or would like to chat with us about our credit repair program please contact us today!