Does Checking Credit Score Affect Credit?

Is it Harmful to Check Your Credit Score?

Used by lenders, landlords, insurance companies, and others, a credit score is a numerical depiction of a person's creditworthiness. Of course, you may wonder whether just monitoring your score could damage it in one sense or another. This article asks the topic and investigates the degree and scope of the effects of credit score checks on your score.

Checks used in the past came in two varieties: soft and hard checks.

One should realize that different credit checks are not all the same. Two main categories may be used to generally classify these credit checks: soft and harsh.

Hard credit checks are those credit checks performed, say for a credit card, auto loan, mortgage, etc., at the time of credit application and may momentarily lower your score by a few points. Usually, the influence is not too severe, however, and your score recovers after some time.

Conversely, mild credit checks have almost no effect on your credit at all. One instance of a soft pull credit check is a credit report check you do on yourself. Before doing business with you, prospective corporations and insurance providers might also undertake soft checks. Soft inquiries—those solely visible to you—have no impact on your credit score in any manner.

How Does Checking Your Score Affect Your Credit?

FICO and VantageScore credit scoring models, which are dominant consumer credit scoring models, do not take into consideration all the inquiries made on the consumer credit report. This means checking your credit report or score by obtaining your credit reports or scores from any source is a soft inquiry.

You can run a credit check on yourself as many times as you wish; it will never appear as a hard inquiry let alone reduce your score. This enables you to check your credit status as frequently as you may deem necessary without putting your credit score at risk.

Some sources where you can check your credit score without affecting your score include.

• AnnualCreditReport. com – It is the authorized website for getting free credit reports.
• This is a credit monitoring service that delivers your reports and scores.
• Your credit card company or bank that offers to give you the score for free
• Social platforms such as Credit Karma and NerdWallet provide relevant information about personal finance.

The rationale behind non-restricting consumers from accessing their credit reports is to assist in credit report accuracy monitoring and financial responsibility. However, there are still existing myths that self-checks negatively affect credit scores. So, do not worry: only the so-called ‘hard’ credit checks conducted by lenders can hinder your scores for a short time.

When Checking Credit May Trigger a Hard Pull?

Sometimes, credit monitoring is capable of putting your credit score under pressure, but only if you decide to apply for new credit.

For instance, most sites that provide free credit scores and credit reports such as Credit Karma make their money through commission whereby they get paid once users take up their recommended financial products. If you accept an offer of a credit card or a loan as part of the offer, then this is the same as applying for a credit card/loan and undergoing the same hard credit check.

However, if you reject all of the offers, your score is not lowered except for the soft search when you retrieve your report. Of course, simply looking at your score – with no further actions, and regardless of where you conduct the check – entails only a soft inquiry.

How To Monitor Credit Responsibly?

Here are some tips to monitor your credit reports and scores without unnecessary hard inquiries.

• Go to AnnualCreditReport. Come to obtain your free credit reports from the three major credit reporting agencies.
• Check your credit score that comes with your credit card company or bank if provided free of charge.
• Take advantage of a reputable free credit report site like Credit Karma that only requests soft credit checks.
• Avoid applying for new credit when you check your score using a third-party service. Decline if uninterested.
• Review your credit report often – report any errors on it as soon as possible.
• If worried about data breaches and identity theft risks, one can opt for credit freezes or fraud alerts.

The Takeaway

Self-monitoring of credit score helps you to detect problems early enough, prove that you are financially responsible for your credit, and do not harm the score you are analyzing. As for the self-inquiries, they are not factored into the credit scoring at all by either FICO or VantageScore.

It is safe to check your credit status as frequently as you would wish without harming your credit status. A hard inquiry is pulled only when one agrees to a new line of credit, and these cause a temporary reduction in scores. Self-credit monitoring is also a responsible way to keep high scores throughout the years and for a long time.

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