Hi all, Tia here, just wondering how long inquiries stay on your credit report? Also, hubby made a phone call to a mortgage company and now I see that they made an inquiry. He didn't give them permission, didn't even give them his social sec. number OR address! Should we fight to get this off? How do you tell the difference between a "hard" and a "soft" inquiry? Thanks in advance! Tia
Yes, you should demand that it be taken off because it's illegal for it to be there as far as I can see. Adverse reports remain for 7 years unless you get them off and bankruptcy and some others stay for 10 years or forever. Inquiries for only 2 years unless you can force them off
I disagree. If the reporting 'penalty' for becoming a deadbeat debtor (obtaining credit, not paying as agreed) was reduced to a handful of years, I can only imagine the glut of people who would purposely start obtaining credit, maxing it out and then not paying for it. Then they would only have three years to wait, and again have a clean slate to attack another 10 or 15 lenders. It's a longer period of time for a reason -- so those who screw things up have time to think about what they did and maybe next time, pay more attention to making the right decisions regarding what credit to apply for and what NOT to apply for. Remember, creditors need SOMETHING to utilize (i.e., your credit history) to base lending decision on. As much as I don't like the current state of the CRA's, without them, lenders would be much less willing to dole out credit cards, lines of credit and loans. How would they determine credit risk? Of course there are circumstances we can't control (i.e., illnesses, etc.), but the vast majority of the non-paying debtors are, in fact, people who made bad decisions and obtained credit when they had no reserves to satisfy their debts in the event of a major event (i.e., job loss). Was I one of those? Yes, I was. Problem is, nobody taught me any different BEFORE I got in over my head. I know better now -- I suffered my 7+ years and now know to make the proper decisions before taking someone else's money to pay for my own wants and/or needs. In short, people would not learn their lesson if the only thing they received was a slap on the hand. Just my $0.02 worth. YMMV. John Shimmer Millennium CBS Home of the Ultimate Creditor/CRA List www.millcbs.com
I disagree with your disagreement.Seven years is OVERKILL. Rather than discouraging or preventing deadbeats it creates them. Punishment is the wrong motive for credit reports. A 3 Yr. credit history is more than enough information to make a decision on.If it's good give them the money.if it's not don't. The level of errors & out right rip-offs is unacceptable.If they can't do any better shut them down and close them up till they get their act together.When they abuse it they should loose it! There are things on peoples reports that shouldn't be there 7 minutes let alone 7 years!: "Forget Using Credit Reports As A Teaching tool:That's not what the're for!"
Thanks yet again Bill. I'm new at this so not sure what to do...do I contact the bank that pulled our credit without permission? Or do I just send a note to the CRA stating that I didn't authorize it? Tia
Your demand for removal of inquiries would go to the CRA in every case. Only certain kinds of inquiries can be removed by the arguments that I am using at the present time as far as I know. There may well be other arguments that I am as of yet unaware of which would permit the removal of even more inquiries.
Even you are entitled to your own personal opinion ... Please provide factual data to support that statement. I absolutely disagree. There were deadbeats hundreds and thousands of years ago, well before credit reporting. That's why there were debtor's prisons. Now, the MOST you need to worry about is that OTHER creditors won't extend credit to you for 7 years. If given a choice, I think I'd take the latter. Punishment is the wrong motive? The only punishment is that you aren't going to be given ANOTHER chance to screw over ANOTHER creditor for quite some time. IMHO, that's only fair. If you poked me in the eye with a stick, do you think I'd hand that stick back to you five minutes later, after you just did it, or do you think I'd wait for enough time to pass, during which I could monitor your behavior, BEFORE letting you play with the stick again? That's an easy call. People screw up -- people need to pay for their mistakes. There should be no hiding from the REAL you, just to give you yet ANOTHER chance to screw over another lender. Sorry, but the financial world can't work any other way, otherwise all the lenders would go broke and/or the GOOD credit risks would end up paying through their noses to make up for your 'once every three years' problems.
