I have looked up the difference between hard inquiry and soft inquiry. How would I know the difference between them by looking on my credit report? Making sure I understand and you guys have been great with explaining everything! If a collection agency ends up being a hard inquiry, should I dispute this, since I did not authorize this? I am guessing that if it gets turned over to a collection agency, they have the same rights as the orginal creditor, so therefore, they can make hard inquires? I want to have all my ducks in a row when I start writing my letters and understand exactly what I am sending.
On Equifax, soft inquiries had some kind of notation in from of the name of the company, such as "AR" that means "account review", while hard inquiries just have the name of the company. On TU and Experian, they are separated into "inquiries seen by others" and "inquiries seen only by you." The ones that are seen by others are hard inquiries. If a CA is putting inquiries on your file, they are looking to see if you are paying anyone, or applying for credit, etc. Sometimes they are skip-tracing - looking for address, phone number and employment info. Having collection inquiries on your report is very bad - like a red flag, even though no one tells you about it. It's hard to get inquiries off, but some here have had success. Some others are talking about suing over it.
