Before I explain how to delete inquiries on a credit report I’ll explain what inquiries are.
Long story short an inquiry means that someone looked inside your credit report. Your credit report is used by creditors and lenders to decide whether or not they will grant you credit. But not just that, they are used by insurance companies to decide whether or not they will cover you with an insurance policy. Obviously they will take a look at your credit report, an inquiry, in order to come to a decision.
Credit reports are used by landlords if you submit an application to rent an apartment or house. They ask you for your social security information, birth date and other information in order to check your credit report and your credit rating or FICO score and this, again, is an inquiry.
Keep in mind that having too many inquiries can be negative, because it could mean that you are attempting to get more credit than you can handle.
So How Do You Delete Inquiries On A Credit Report?
Watch out for any unauthorized inquiries because thieves may have requested credit in your name. They may be pretending they’re a legitimate business or company that has a legal right to access your credit report. You can easily get these removed by simply writing a letter with documentation and an explanation.
You also need to know that there are two kinds of inquiries. There are “soft” inquiries and “hard” inquiries. “Soft” inquiries will not affect your FICO score. It’s only viewed by you and does not impact your credit score. When you request a copy of your credit report you will be noted as an inquiry, a “soft” inquiry. Any of the creditors you have now can take a look at your credit report during your association with them and these are also “soft” inquiries.
“Hard” inquiries do affect your credit report and FICO score. When you apply for credit whether it’s for credit cards or an auto loan for example, this will reflect on your credit score. Lenders are concerned that you have too much outstanding credit now and only so much income. They want to make sure that you can pay back.
These inquiries will expire naturally in two years. You may not be able to remove them before that if they’re correct. If there are any inquiries that you have not authorized, you can get them deleted by writing a letter to the credit bureaus or credit reporting agencies that listed them.
There is however one exception: if you have two inquiries from the same source you may be able to get them merged so that one is deleted.
Lastly you need to know that inquiries that have been on your credit report for more than six months are usually not taken into account when creditors or lenders consider granting credit or loans. This should get some problems off your shoulders.
This is pretty much everything you need to know about credit report inquiries, what they are and how to remove them from your credit report. Keep following our site for more information on credit reports and related topics.
Let’s get right to it shall we?
1) Beware Of Debts & Credit You Don’t Use
Just as it is very easy to apply for a store credit card, it is also easy to forget you have it. It is important to remember that the account will stay on your report and damage or not your score as long as it is open. Avoid having credit lines and cards you won’t use. It will make you look more risky from a lenders point of view. Stick only with the accounts you use on a daily basis and consider closing your other accounts. This way it will make it easier for you to follow your debts and will increase the chances of you having a good credit score. It is also important to know that when you close an account, the record of the closed account remains on your credit report and can affect your credit score for some time. In reality, closing unused credit accounts may cause your credit score to drop in the short-term, as you will have higher credit balances spread out over a smaller overall credit account base.
2) Avoid Having A Lot Of Credit Report Inquiries
An inquiry is noted every time someone looks at your credit report. Don’t make the mistake of allowing too many inquiries on your credit report, as it may may seem that you have been rejected by multiple lenders. Which means that you should be aware of who looks at it. You can minimize the number of inquiries on your account by approaching lenders you have already researched and are interested in doing business with.
3) Don’t Think That You Only Have One Credit Report
A lot of people mistakenly talk about having a “credit score” when in reality credit reports often include three or more credit scores. There are three major credit bureaus in the United States that develop credit reports and calculate credit scores, and also a number of smaller credit bureau companies. When looking to improve your credit report, you should not concentrate just on one number. You should contact the three major credit bureaus and work on improving all three credit scores.
4) Having No Loans & No Debt Will Not Improve Your Credit Report
Some of us make the mistake of believing that owing no money, having no credit cards, and avoiding the whole world of credit will help raise the score on their credit report. When in fact, the opposite is true. Lenders want to know about your past ability to manage credit, and the only way they can figure it out is by the score on your credit report. Having no credit at all can actually be worse for your credit score than having a few credit accounts that you pay off on time. If you currently have no credit accounts at all, opening a low balance credit card can actually increase your credit score.
5) Never Do Anything Illegal To Repair Your Credit Report
It seems pretty obvious, but plenty of people make the mistake of lying about their credit score or worse, falsifying their loan applications because they are ashamed of a bad score. Not only is this illegal, but it is also completely ineffective at repairing your credit report. Your credit score is easy to check and, not only will you not fool lenders by lying on your credit report, but you may actually face legal action as a result of your dishonesty.
When doing a search for credit report repair or go through the forums that are known with consumer advocates and credit repair specialists and
you probably will find more than a few contributors who say that fixing your credit reports is a simple process. According to them, all you need, is a copy of your credit reports, and you to compose a dispute letter to the credit bureaus pleading your case, and in 30 days the offending items on your reports are gone. Your credit score gets instantly better and you can make all of the purchases you need
Actually credit report repair is not as simple as many people say. Imagine though if credit repair were so easy, why would the federal government create legislation to preserve the integrity of the companies offering credit report repair services instead of just banning the practice altogether?
The Reason why Credit Repair is Difficult
Understanding why credit repair is not simple and why the process has to be regulated requires a little understanding of the economics driving the bureaus; the main three of which are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. contrary to what many people believe, credit bureaus are not government entities. They are profit seeking corporations that make money by collecting your personal information and selling it to interested parties. They are regulated by laws created to oversee credit reporting agencies but the agencies are not created as a result of legislation. In reality, if it weren’t for the fact that they are required by law to investigate consumer disputes, the credit bureaus wouldn’t even bother with the practice in the first place. For the bureaus, credit report repair is a drain on resources with zero return on investment.
In return/As as a consequence the bureaus do not want to make it easy for you to repair your credit but even more than that, you are the only one that wants to remove errors from your credit report. You are not the primary client of the credit bureaus and until the bureaus began selling credit reports directly to consumers the credit bureaus could not profit from you at all, makes sense?.
How Exactly does the Credit Bureaus Make Credit Repair Difficult
Now that we know why the credit bureaus make credit repair difficult we just need to know how? Nothing simpler, by using the same laws that have been enacted to allow consumers to dispute negative items in their credit reports. Credit report legislation states that consumers are able to dispute any items on their credit reports that they feel are inaccurate, unverifiable, or misleading. These vaguely defined terms make it possible to dispute a lot of items on credit reports.
To counter the vague parameters provided to the individual consumers, the credit bureaus were also provided with even more abstract rules. According to the legislation, the bureaus are required to investigate consumer disputes unless they feel the disputes are “frivolous or irrelevant”, and they take full advantage of this leeway. The bureaus set up “gatekeepers” who accept all consumer disputes and decide which disputes warrant an investigation, and since these gatekeepers work for the credit bureaus, they are clearly biased towards their employers and against you. Getting past the gatekeepers becomes the largest hurdle in credit report repair and frequently devolves into a trial and error process of writing letters, waiting, fielding rejections or stall letters, and starting all over again.
So How Can You Get Your Credit Report Repaired – The Easy Way
Repairing your credit report can still be an easy process from your perspective; it just requires a simpler allocation of resources. Instead of spending resources like time and effort, you can spend a little money to have an expert repair your credit for you. This way, you will end up with the job done, faster, without any worries. Professional credit report repair is easy. You simply have to get your credit reports, provide them to a credit repair agency, select which items on your report you want to dispute and let them to manage the process from there.
