This says this and another boards says it illegal?

If the inquires are not ones you authorized then you should dispute them and it is not illegal.

 

FCRA gives the consumer the right to dispute ANY information in his "credit file". That includes ALL information that the CRAs report to their customers as associated with the consumer.

FCRA also requires the CRAs to have systems for maintaining accurate information in their files. These systems specifically include allowing disputes of such information by consumers.

A consumer cannot possibly know or determine whether any particular information is accurate without being able to dispute it.

It is not illegal to exercise any consumer right that the law provides.


Some of the CRAs have taken the position that inquiries are "fact" and cannot be disputed. Yet there are many reasons why illegitimate inquiries will end up on a consumer's reports.

The CRA could have mixed up two consumers, and a bunch of inquiries intended to be related to another consumer could end up on your reports. One of their customers could have done the same. A company could have pulled your reports without permissible purpose. Or you could be dealing with someone attempting to use your credit to open fraudulent accounts. Any of these could result in inquiries on your reports.

FCRA requires disclosure of inquiries to the consumer. It DOES NOT require disclosure of inquiries to businesses pulling credit reports.

CRAs are not God. They only think they are.

 

Probably both.

If your goal is simply to remove erroneous inquiries because they are affecting your FICO scores, then disputes thru the CRAs may be the most direct.

But if your goal is to get to the bottom of various errors on your reports, for accounts that are not yours, you would want to dispute thru the CRAs, AND follow up with the companies that pulled your reports to get whatever information you can on the accounts.


If they are pulling reports without permissible purpose, file AG and FTC complaints. If, say, a local car dealer pulled your reports without your permission, you might also want to file a complaint with your local DA's consumer protection unit. You may also want to sue.

If someone is opening accounts in your name, you will want to file an id theft complaint with your local police, get a copy of the report, place a fraud alert thru the CRAs, and use the police report and fraud affidavit to get removal of the fraudulent activity from your reports thru the CRAs.

 

Let me guess,Creditboard right. I seen more than one meltdown on this subject.Got close to banishment myself because I told site owner they were full of it when they said it could not be done. I take Ontrack's view that any incorrect info can be corrected.Transunion and Experian will be tough,Equifax is not bad. Be aware you may end up with a fraud alert during this type of dispute. Experian are famous for it.

 

What is the level of importance? Some lines are more worth defending than others.

If you are dealing with a bunch of inquiries from companies you have never done business with, and your CR identity is getting merged with someone else, or someone is trying to use your identity, it's probably important to follow up to find out what is going on, and file id theft complaints, or even sue, if appropriate.

If you made some application to e-loan, or similar, and you got a bunch of inquiries from lenders all over the place, they may have had PP. You might dispute and get some removed, to minimize short term damage to your scores, but the effect will fade in a few months anyway.

If some car dealer pulled your reports, you had no intention of financing thru them and did not authorize the pull, and you think they pulled your credit to trash it and obtain an advantage in selling you the financing, screw them.

If you applied for a mortgage, or for a car loan, and authorized and generated a bunch of inquiries as a result, keep in mind that all inquires within 30 days, (or 14 days by the old FICO program for car loans) are scored as 1 inquiry. Choose your battles.

What type of businesses are the inquiries reported to be by? What type of inquiries (Account Review, PRM, soft vs. hard, etc.)?

 

They can be a little rough on posters. I installed a skin thickener and a bs filter.Now I take what they say and compare to either caselaw or written statute.

 

Ontrack is right in choosing your battles. You need to determine where the inquiries came from and why they are there. From there you will have a starting point.

 

Creditboards is fine if and when you want to find deals on credit card accounts. Their advice on disputing items, handling FDCPA/FCRA issues, and credit repair in general is by and large less than stellar.

When the admins and owners don't really understand the language of the statutes which govern the industry . . . well, you have a problem.

This not too say that its a poor resource because it isn't. However, it ranks rather low when it comes legalese arguments. They also tend to compound this issue when the mods, admins, and the like use unprofessional candor when they are in disagreement with certain posters but, I digress. It is not a really "open" forum such as you will find here.

I can think of one far worse though but, I won't mention names . . .

Whatever you do, never mention "seasoned tradelines" or "credit repair organizations" over there insofar as both are the devil and never of any value to anyone regardless of the situation.

But to answer your question, disputing inquiries isn't illegal even if they are yours. There isn't a provision within the FCRA wherein it states you can't dispute accurate information on your "own" reports. For CRO's, its a different standard. Moreover, it isn't "fraud" and they like to use that terms over on creditboards too. Again, most over there don't bother to look at the elements of the common law or the language of the statute. In other words, if you want to lie, you can. I'm not condoning it but, it isn't defined as a crime to do so.

As ontrack said, you have to pick and choose your battles. With inquiries, its really a matter of need. If you need a house, you have to get 10 points to raise your mid-score on Equifax in order to get approved . . . do it. You may get a fraud alert but, in the above case, so what, it would be worth it. Now, if you're just starting out with restoring your credit, you have bigger fish to fry I would imagine insofar as inquiries do not amount to many points. Again, you have to assess your situation at the time in order to make an informed decision but, don't let anyone tell you that "you're going to jail" if and when you decide to dispute this information.

 

The credit reporting system is so rife with errors that you may not know whether anything reported is accurate unless you dispute it, if even then. You don't have full transparent access to all information in your file, despite federal requirements on consumer disclosure, and you are dealing with a system that was originally designed to hide information from you so that you could be politely declined with no apparent recourse.

You might think something as innocuous as an inquiry is from some credit relationship you authorized, but as it is common for creditors to use various name variations, and not uncommon for creditors to mess up consumer identity information, it might have been pulled in relation to some other consumer. They might pull your report, realize it's the wrong one from the addresses, and go on to pull the correct one. By law, the CRA must display their inquiry TO YOU so that you know they did it. At least you know, but that does not make the inquiry, or the effect it has on your scores, legitimate.

Unlike disclosure to consumers, which is specifically required by FCRA, there is NO legal requirement that the CRAs disclose all inquiries to their customers. There are, however, prohibitions against disclosing some types, PRMs and pulls by the consumer himself to be specific. The whole distinction between soft vs. hard exists nowhere in the law.

There might even be several identities under your SSN, the others all illegal but undisclosed to you, and every time a creditor gets an application from one of your clowns, they pull them all to find out which one to use. There isn't even any legal requirement that the CRAs disclose all information they have under your SSN to you, if they have the other uses of that SSN classified as different persons.

There was a reported case a few years ago where an instructor at a company teaching the credit processing employees routinely punched in a particular SSN, and piled a whole bunch of inquiries onto some unsuspecting consumer's reports everytime she did training.

 

The only problem you might run into in disputing inq's is a fraud alert put on your file. Credit boards is very helpful in many ways, but they will take you to the cleaner if you post about disputing inq's. Also, that board has more bragger post then any board I have ever posted on. Instead of helpeing each other, the brag posts take up all the legit questions that people need help with. I also have found that several posters lie allot on that board. One poster was posting he got 200k in credit since his bk and on another board he stated the same day we was able to get 35k in credit since his bk. They also will run anyone who outdoes any of the vets with successes or credit lines. It is good for obtaining credit and how to build a good file but if you step out of line with your opinion a few of the vets will run you off in a hurry which is crap. It is not illegal at all for you to dispute inq's, where they get this from I do not know. I had a couple double inqs on the same pull, disputed one of each and they both were gone.
Be aware of the fraud alert issue on disputing inqs.

 

There are plenty of people on Creditboards who understand the law extremely well. Lately, though, I have noticed most all of the experienced people are not posting much, or at all, which leaves the near newbies helping real newbies. So the collective experience being posted on the board is far less than it has been over the years.

 

Keep in mind, the law only requires that INQs be disclosed to the CONSUMER, so disputing hard INQs is legal.

 

They have the most problems interpreting most legal definitions of "fraud" over there it seems. Very annoying . . .

I suppose the ultimate issue is if there is a criminal penalty imposed under the FCRA for one disputing any information on the credit own credit report, accurate or otherwise. Last time I checked there wasn't so disputing anything is legal until a new proviso is inserted or the statute amended to reflect a criminal sanction.