How Do I Get Credit Inquiries Off My Report?

With that in mind, here are some steps that you can take to remove credit inquiries from your credit report:

This report includes the details of your record concerning payment of bills, the amounts that you currently owe your credit, the length of your credit history, the kind of credit you have used, and the number of inquiries by the credit reporting agencies. Concerning this, most of the sections are easily understandable by the general consumer, but the ‘inquiries’ have been a bone of contention among many consumers.

In this article, you are going to learn what credit inquiries are, their two primary categories, how they impact your credit, and, more importantly, how to dispute credit inquiries and have them removed from your credit report.

What Are Credit Inquiries?

A credit inquiry is a process whereby a financial institution or a lender pulls your credit report before extending any form of credit that a customer may be willing to apply for, for instance, a credit card or any loan. They want to know if you meet their checklist through your credit scores and records.

There Are Two Types of Credit Inquiries:

Hard Inquiries (Voluntary): These come up when you are applying for a new credit card or loan. The impact of hard inquiries is a small reduction in your credit score as these pulls affect your credit report for about 2 years. However, FICO scores allow for rate-shopping for specific loans within 45 days to be counted as one hard inquiry.

Soft Inquiries (Involuntary): Soft inquiries occur when you pull your credit report by yourself or when a creditor pulls your report behind your back, but not necessarily at your request, such as for pre-approval of credit offers. These inquiries are NOT included in your scores and disappear from your reports within about 12 months.

While there are two broad categories of inquiries, only Hard Inquiries are detrimental to your credit scores.

However, multiple new credit applications can reduce the chances of approval as well as increase interest rates; but occasional, hard inquiries from comparison-rate insurance solicitations are acceptable. That is as mentioned before, FICO lumps together all auto, mortgage, and student loan inquiries made in the 45-day space as one hence it does not lower scores too much.

If you recognize some of the credit accounts for which you did not apply on your reports, then you are a victim of credit card fraud and you need to do something about it. However, if this is the case, hard inquiries do self-eliminate from your credit report after two years.

You rarely can delete a valid hard inquiry, but here are possible ways if you have few from rate-shopping…

Hard credit inquiries are credit checks that you make when you apply for loans or credit cards or through authorized user credit checks.

Go to the Lender

When people are shopping for auto or mortgage loans, they can determine all the lenders with whom they applied and send dispute letters to request that the unnecessary hard inquiries be removed. Be friendly and say you did so to compare the loan rates and terms within the shortest one to two weeks.

Include other documents that may have been generated as a result of exercising the right to shop for rates such as loan estimates. Instead of using demands to put pressure on them, please politely request if they would be so kind as to assist you in removing any beyond the first one. If some lenders do so, it will assist in raising credit scores as a result of paying off credit card balances.

Dispute Errors in Your Credit Report

It is worthy of note that you can challenge any of the legitimate hard inquiries that are older than two years or any inquiry for an account that you never opened. Go to AnnualCreditReport. com and obtain your three credit reports; you should cross out the inquiries that the credit bureaus do not approve as ‘not mine’ or ‘not within permissible period’ before sending the dispute letters.

According to the law, the three credit bureaus; Experian, Equifax & TransUnion have to conduct their investigation within the 30-45 days period. They have to delete those items if they were provided as wrong or old and are present in your credit file.

Try Goodwill Letters

A goodwill letter requests lenders to delete any hard inquiries because they are still recent ones even though they are permitted to be in your credit reports. When you write messages that you want to be different from the numerous credit report disputes that the creditor may handle, it is essential to be brief, insert additional statements, but above all – be polite.

Why would eliminating the inquiries be beneficial to you in terms of your financial circumstance without having to tell ‘sob stories? ’ For instance, explain that you are in the process of rehabilitation after bankruptcy and illness and in the process of obtaining a mortgage at an interest rate that you can afford. Or those soon expecting to start a family need to buy a car that they can depend on.

Stress that they are now in a different financial position and they just require their request to be granted so they can progress and seek a better credit status. Then assure them that you will bring more business to them at some other time if they honor your request out of the goodness of their hearts.

Goodwill letters can be helpful and the worst thing that can happen is that they won’t work; they may also assist in eliminating more recent hard inquiries from your credit reports.

Avoid Careless Credit Applications

The only way to avoid several credit inquiries is to be more conscious and selective about any further credit requests. Reduce the number of applications for several new accounts in a few months and avoid applying for credit or accepting terms knowing they will not be approved.

Additionally, frequent comparison shopping of mortgage rates or car loans within a short period will be reported as a single hard inquiry. Finally, do not sign up for pre-screened credit or loan offers, and carry out periodic checks on your credit reports so that you can correct errors in time.

Once again, I would advise that ‘let them drop off’, be patient, and don’t rush the process.

As a last resort, do not forget that the majority of the hard inquiries of your credit reports usually disappear at the end of twenty-four months. The impact on your credit score is even further reduced almost immediately. Therefore, if all of yours are genuine from actual credit applications, then it is better to let them remain on the credit file and age as they are rather than stressing about them.

As for the remaining points, just maintain a good credit standing in the meantime – pay all your bills on time, keep credit card utilization below thirty percent, etc. These behaviors are far more relevant to your credit scores than a few inquiries stemming from rate shopping.

The Bottom Line

Many credit inquiries within a few months can also indicate credit risk to the lenders and may affect the credit score. Most legitimate ones must stay on for two years, but you do have some control over them like by requesting lenders to delete them out of courtesy or disputing if they’re incorrect. In the future, be more selective of how often and when you apply for consumer credit.

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