CRA's response to inquires

I disputed inquires online with Equifax and received the same response. They sent me a letter saying I had to contact each one directly. I am also curious how people manage to get inquiries deleted..

 

Credit inquiries don't hurt your credit as much as people say they do. They are a factor, but of all the things factored, they are the least and their effect goes away the quickest.

Credit scoring makes sense when you think about it in terms of risk. Things that indicate high risk make your score go down, things that indicate low risk make your score go up.

With credit inquiries, a lot of them in a short period of time indicates high risk. Why do you need so much credit? Has something changed in your life? Is the change good or bad? Has someone stolen your identity? (rhetorical questions, things a creditor might ask)

But the thing is, in just a few months, any creditor checking your report can see how much credit you've gotten from all these applications. The damage done will go away.

Of course, if you get a lot of new credit as a result of these applications, then you get dinged for having a lot of new credit. Then you can choose to either just wait it out until this credit isn't so new anymore, or you can close whatever accounts you don't really want.

Anyway, unless you're planning on buying a house or a car really soon, I wouldn't worry about this. It's not worth the effort.

 

One more thing, it's not a good idea to dispute items that are true. This is an abuse of the system, and makes it harder for people with legit disputes. We wonder why the CRAs take the creditors side all the time? Well, this is one strong reason.

You did authorize those inquiries. Having second thoughts after the fact doesn't change that.

 

Go away troll.
I will be more than happy to ban you from you ISP and email accts. Don't be an idiot.
I'm looking to bust a few trolls now adays.

 

See there you go mycroft. I post on my other thread to give you a chance and you go off spouting your misinformation and passing judgement. Shame on you. Any idiot knows that hard inquiries have an enormous effect on your credit report. Heck, I have had companies blindly pull my report with no permissable purpose. Experian told me the same line of crap so just to see what happens I called one of the companies. It took them nearly 3 months, over 30 phone calls, and countless hours for them to come to the conclusion that it was pulled in error. DUH. They sent a letter to experian and experian's reponse was to shove it and it would stay but they would generously change it to a soft inquiry. The fact is they have to dispute. I took them to court a couple of weeks ago and this was one of the issues. Of course, it will never stick until someone hits it at federal court and makes it case law but you get the idea.

 

Humblemarc,

I'm really not sure how I offended you. Perhaps you could let me know what I said that is trollish?

I've stated that credit inquiries are over-rated as far as the damage they do to the credit report. This can be verified at Myfico.com, which is hosted by FICO, the company that scores credit reports. While the exact formula is a trade secret, they do clearly state that inquiries are only a minor factor, and short lived.

I also stated that disputing factual information with the CRAs is a bad idea. My opinion. While I don't think I should have to defend a position of not telling lies, I did find something in the Creditwrench FAQ that seems to agree with me on this. Let me quote:

"As you know full well, it's simply wrong to tell lies in order to gain the ends you want and in the case of credit bureaus and creditors, it's against the law to lie to them. YOU CAN GO TO JAIL! "

Now I'm new here so maybe I havn't figured everything out, but arn't Creditwrench and Creditnet linked somehow?

I could be wrong about that. Maybe there is no link between the two, and I'm simply affirming the position of the CEO of Creditwrench, who happens to be a regular non-troll poster here.


picantel,

I stand behind my advice. If the OP in this thread doesn't want to take it, that's fine, but I offer it anyway.

Let me offer some advice to you:

In another thread, someone said they had a hard inquiry that cost him 6 points on his credit score. That sounds about right for a recent inquiry. (he doesn't want to take my advice either, that's fine too)

You spent 3 months and 30 phone calls correcting one inquiry?!!

That's insane. Truly. All that time and effort, and by the time you got it fixed, the damage had gone away anyway.

I'm not saying this to be judgmental. You are correct in that it was their fault, and they should not have made it so hard to fix it. I agree with you on that.

But putting all that time and effort into fixing it? You have two FICO scores in the low 600's, surely there is something else you could have spent that time working on? That's like taking the time to put a band-aid on a paper cut when you have a broken wrist.

Look at your priorities. If credit repair is your goal, you need to FIRST deal with the big things. Don't worry about the little thing that dinks you 5 points for a couple of months when you have other things that are holding you back 80 points.

 

Consumers have the right to make sure that what information is reported on a consumer's credit report be 100% accurate and verifiable. If not, it has to be removed from a consumers reports.

I don't see disputing items that are accurate as abuse of the system. Perhaps taking advantage of the system would be more appropriate term for disputing accurate information. Abuse would be in a case of where someone submits fraudulent informaton in an attempt to have an item removed. There is a diffrence.

CRA's do take creditors sides most of the time, and I agree that it is more than likely due to abuses of the system. But, it is also in the best interest of CRA's to report negative information. More derogs=more times the consumer will have to apply for credit due to refusals and more bad credit lists to sell=more profit for the CRA's.

I only have one life to live on this planet that I know of and few opportunities to achieve my goals and a finite amount of time in which to do it. If taking advantage of the system is what it takes for me to get ahead, so be it, I'll be enjoying my filet mignon while the rest of the folks whose morals got in the way are eating baloney sandwiches.

 

Re: Re: CRA's response to inquires

So you agree that it's wrong to submit fraudulent information? How is that different from disputing accurate information? If you dispute accurate information, you're saying that something that is correct is not correct.

When I started in the mortgage industry, it was wil a sub-prime lender. We could do a mortgage with just one credit bureau report, so we would cherry-pick the report. If a customer had seen his credit recently, I'd ask which bureau had the best score, then I'd pull that report. Sometimes I'd pull a tri-merged, turn that file down, then open a new file with just

Even when we didn't cherry-pick that way, we still kept track of which bureaus were likely to produce the higher scoers for each region, and we favored that bureau.

Those were the decisions we made as loan officers. We were lending someone else's money, we didn't care. After a while, the decision on which credit bureau to pull was taken out of our hands, we were creating too many high-risk loans.

The point is that your theory doesn't really hold water. When it comes right down to it, the credit bureaus sell a product, and the accuracy of the reports go directly to product quality. There are plenty of lenders that only pull one report, and they are going to choose the one they think is going to have the best data.

There are actually a lot more than three credit bureaus. The ones we think of as the top three are the ones that have become industry leaders by providing the best product. If one consistantly showed bad information, eventualy they would lose their position as an industry leader.

The truth is morals lead to success. This is something I had to learn, I didn't always think that way.

When you're in business, you live or die by repeat customers. If you make your decisions from the point of view that you're always going to do the right thing, people remember that and come back to you. Further, they do refer their friends and family to you.

When you bend the rules, even when you do it in the customers favor, they remember that too, and they learn not to trust you. You may get their business once, but they don't come back.

If you're not in business for yourself, it hurts you there too. When you work for someone else, the people around you know how you make your decisions, and remember it when it comes to promotions and raises.

If you make all your decisions from the point of view of what's best for you, nobody is going to tell you to your face that you're not trusted and that they don't approve. You never learn why you're not included, why the other guy got the promotion.

In my line of work, I see a lot of people that get into the business and all they can see are dollar signs. They make a lot of money fast by selling people on products that aren't right for them but make high commissions. They eat filet mignon...for a while.

But they don't sustain it. They get reputations and they stop getting referals. Suddenly the six figure income isn't there anymore, and the bills are hard to pay. Then all the rules they bent along the way come back to haunt them, and not only are they not getting customers, but they're getting shut down by the investors too.

I hope you're not solid on that "ethics get in the way" point of view yet.

 

first and foremost, in no way are CN and creditwrench connected other than BillBauer is a member of this board, and the owner of the other.
I'll just leave that at at that.

As someone in the 'mortgage business' (as i am) you should know the impact of inqs on fico.
Where's your 'moral ethics' when discussing that subject? one or two inqs. could easily drop someone's middle fico below the much desired prime rate they would have received with a higher score. ie. difference between a 712 and 721 fico, could and does cost someone the lowest APR and possibly the amount of a down payment esp. when it comes to investment props. Lenders are in the business to make money, and if they think can get away with it, they will NOT overlook a few fico points when deciding their underwriting.
Odd that you haven't learned that in your many years of brokering. . .

As far as your 'trollish behavior'. . .just called it a hunch. my intuition has never been wrong before and that's what is telling me now, as evidenced by your inaccurate info. re: mortgages and underwriting and the 'effect' of inqs. on them.

Futhermore, if you can site ONE INSTANCE WHERE SOMEONE WENT TO "JAIL" FOR DISPUTING CORRECT INFO. ON THEIR REPORT, I WILL READILY APOLOGIZE. ALSO IF YOU CAN, POINT OUT TO ME WHERE IN THE FCRA IT STATES THE PENALTY OF JAIL FOR DISPUTING 'CORRECT' INFO.

 

Re: Re: Re: CRA's response to inquires

I should know; I work part-time in their quality control department. Unfortunately, it's not a paying position, but I do get to work from home.

While I can't speak for dixidriftr specifically, let's just say some of us have borrowed a page from the CRAs' "Highly Selective Accuracy" manual:

http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/article1063.html

Paragons of integrity and fairness, those CRAs.

wajaba

P.S. The above link was courtesy of Greg Fisher's creditaccuracy.com site.

 

I have tried to get the EVIL EXP to investigate inquiries too, but they wouldn't budge. It really upsets me that EXP gave a CA access to my personal information when the CA knew I had no account with them. If someone complains of harrassment by CA, I think the CRA is obligated to investigate. After all, there is a $$ fine for a CRA to impose against someone/thing that wrongfully views a credit report in the FCRA. They have an obligation as "gatekeepers" of private and personal information to protect our privacy. Not just hand it out like candy to anyone willing to pay a buck for it.

Their interpretation of the FCRA is they are not required to investigate inquiries. Consumers seem to have a different opinion.


I just filed against them and included refusal to investigate inquiries as a violation of the FCRA. That may actually be the only way to get the CRA's to investigate. We'll see how a panel of 12 jurors interprets the FCRA.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: CRA's response to inquires

Just goes to show corrupt Fico CRAS and credit reporting is.

 

Re: Re: CRA's response to inquires

Yeah, I know that now. I didn't then.

I put "Creditnet" in a search engine and his site was one of the ones that came up. Then I came here and saw him posting a lot, so I thought there might be a connection.

Yes, I do. It's something mortgage brokers warn their customers about as a way to keep them from shopping around. I personally think that kind of misinformation is a little sleazy, but it's common in the industry. I just tell them not to get new credit because it will change their DTI.

Didn't you say you're in the mortgage biz? I ask because when most mortgage pros say "prime rate" they mean the index, like LIBOR or T-bills. You say it like you mean market rate.

The difference between a FICO of 721 and 712 will make a difference if you need a 103% purchase loan, but that's a non-conforming product anyway so it's not going to be at market rate.

For the conforming FNMA loan, credit is pass/fail. The rate is the same if the credit is 721, 712, 650 or 850.

Credit is only listed on sub-prime and non-conforming rate sheets.

Maybe things are different where you work, where I work underwriters don't decide the rate. They approve the loan.

I will stand behind everything I've said on these subjects.

 

Re: Re: CRA's response to inquires

yeah, I need to clarify that.

I didn't say you could go to jail for disputing correct information on your credit report.

What I said is that it's not a good idea to dispute information that's true, because that's an abuse of the system.

When you called me a troll for saying that, I quoted a paragraph from a FAQ page on Creditwrench.com showing that at least one other prominent member of this board agreed with my position, that it's wrong to tell lies to get what you want.

I commend Bill Bauer for saying that. While I disagree with him on some minor issues, he has my respect.

As for the part about going to jail...I'm not aware of anyone who has ever gone to jail over that, but that's not the same as saying it couldn't happen. Obviously the prosecution wouldn't involve FCRA, but there are other laws about providing false statements and documentation for the purpose of obtaining credit. It's not inconcievable that sometime in the future, some smart state attorney general becomes convinced that something needs to be done (campaign contributions?) and will adapt an existing fraud law to prosecute someone.

But that's just speculation. I don't have an opinion on if such a thing will or will not happen.

For the record, I am still of the opinion that having correct information removed from a credit bureau is an abuse of the system. Bill said it very well when he put it more bluntly, it's wrong to tell lies to get what you want.

At the same time, when I first said that, I didn't yet understand the purpose of this board. I thought creditnet was more about credit issues in general, and not specificaly about credit repair.

While that distinction doesn't change my opinion, it does change how I express my opinion.

 

Re: Re: CRA's response to inquires

Mycroft, have you ever been forced to file bankruptcy?

Ever lost a job due to illness or lay offs and were unable to pay your bills and then you were unable to find work and had your credit accounts charged off and collection agencies sent after you?

What about that one collection agency account for $30 that resulted from a medical insurace billing error that cost you $$$'s in interest on a new vehicle?

Would you be still be so vehement in your position that accurate information should be continue to remain on a consumer report?

My credit problems originated when my caring for my cancer stricken grandfather and I was unable to work. I carried him to the doctor, help give him baths, cooked his meals, and put him to bed. Sure I could have stayed working full time, but someone had to care for him.

 

Re: Re: Re: CRA's response to inquires

I never filed bankruptcy, but there was a time in my life when that was a real option I considered. Today I'm glad that I didn't, but I recognize that had circimstances been different, I might have made the other choice.

I have been laid off, and when my mom had a stroke, I quit my job to take care of her. I was unable to pay my bills, I had collection agencies after me. I have had judgments placed against me, and the contents of my bank account garnished.

I hold some opinions that seem unsympathetic to some people. I came to these opinions BECAUSE I have had problems, not because I have never faced problems.

You know what? I'm with you on the medical issue. The system is messed up and arbitrary. I favor reform of medical billing and collections, and the medical system in general.

But my position is that the system needs to be reformed, not subverted.

You can't hold a position such as "it's wrong to tell a lie" and then put qualifiers on it. If you put qualifiers on it, then your position is "It's okay to tell a lie."

If you had to choose between working full time and taking care of your grandfather, then I think you made the right choice. Not everybody is willing to sacrifice for others, even when it's family. That shows you are a good person.

Your good credit was a part of that sacrifice.

It was the correct decision.

At the same time, many people make life decisions so that they will not be faced with those choices. It's not something we like to think about, but we all know that the elders we love will someday reach a point where they can no longer take care of themselves. These are things that can be planned for in advance, so that when they happen, they will not be devastating. Through retirement savings, investments, and insurance, we can deal with these emergencies.

When faced with the immediate emergency of your grandfathers cancer, you made the right decision. The wrong decision was made previously. The wrong decision was that nobody planned for something like this happening.

I'm not saying this to be judgmental. I'm not perfect, I've made mistakes, I still make mistakes. I understand why we don't plan for emergencies because I havn't always planned for them. Honestly, I still havn't done everything I need to do. I'm working on it, but I'm not there yet.

 

Re: Re: Re: CRA's response to inquires

I agree with a lot of the "honesty and moral" issues here but what I think is one of the biggest problems with the system is the fact that negative info stays on your report for 7 years. Talk about ludicrous!! 15 years ago someone broke into my home and took some personal belongs. The same person broke into 6 other homes in my area and was convicted. She (an 18 y/o female) was sentenced to 7 years in a min. security prison, 6 years suspended if she finished her GED, got a job and started paying restitution. Guess what?!?!?!?! She was on the streets on parole in 6 months, I got one check for $50 (as did the each of the other victims), she was picked up again - theft, hot checks, etc. and she is on the streets again today.

Now, explain to me why I should have to pay for SEVEN long years because I suffered a year of misfortune. I too quit a good job to care for a parent with cancer (twice) and during this time my husband was laid off. We never had anything repossessed, never had anything written off as a bad debt, managed not to file bankruptcy, but guess what.....IT KILLED OUR CREDIT. Yes we have to pay for this for 7 years. I think that is totally off base.

Most of this was 5+ years ago and we're still trying to fix the damage.

Can you explain that? The system needs reform and until it happens, we're all doing the best we can. I'm not a deadbeat and I'm sick and tired of paying higher rates and more insurance than the person who hasn't had set backs. As far as I'm concerned, it's a form of legal discrimination.

 

Re: Re: Re: CRA's response to inquires

As far as I'm concerned, it's a form of legal discrimination.
BlueEyes
=======================
Make that legal extortion.


The END ************************* LB 59

 

What I said is that it's not a good idea to dispute information that's true, because that's an abuse of the system.
Mycroft
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~```````` The so called system is the abuse.
The END ************************* LB 59