Ran across this article and I found it very interesting. Especially the part about "Until recently, your score would have gone down if you made a number of applications for credit cards or mortgages within a short period of time --even if all you were doing was shopping around for the lowest rate or best overall deal. Now, Fair, Isaac claims that they lump together inquiries made within a short period of time as one inquiry. So, if you're shopping around, make your inquiries all within a few days if you can." The url is: http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/news/capitol/5505.asp This seems to dispute the theory that lot of inquiries all at once can hurt you. Of course the real evidence is the six inquiries (two for insurance and three for an autoloan) in the past two months and how much my score has dropped...lol. Laura
MAYBE............that was the answer to my PFB letter I sent them regarding "SHOPPING AROUND" and "MORE CONSUMER FRIENDLY" scoring?!?!?!?!?!!?
It is BS. They use this crap to sell their services - telling insurance companies that their inquiries don't hurt the consumer, and that you can shop around for a car loan, but when you go back and look at your score, you find every inquiry has hurt you, and your score plummets. All these companies that want to check my credit for every little thing can just do without my business.
breeze, I totally AGREE! No matter what they say, potential creditors will always see all those inquiries. Until there is universal understand by creditors that consumers just like to shop around for the best deal, they'll always be those that'll deny you credit because of too many recent inquries. I'm not taking the bite, hth
All good points. SUPPOSEDLY the FICO scoring system "knows" when you're applied for a mortgage or car and treats multiple inquiries within a short time period of the same kind as one... but nobody knows for sure, since nobody sees the formulas. I can say, anecdotally, removing inquiries that happened duing a refinancing didn't do anything to my score (4 banks inquiries within 7 days - I disputed and removed 2 of them). There is a LOT more shopping going on now - especiallly since applications are so darn easy thanks to the net. The credit bureaus are dancing around this issue - they want us to apply, the fees they make for providing credit reports rely on us making applications. Good luck, mj
Exactly, mj. I think that is why they don't want us to know how the score is calculated. A lot of the things we do that lower our scores, they want us to do, because that is how they make money. They don't want us adjusting our behavior. But I recently went through some training on the insurance scoring part of it, and the stuff the trainers tell the insurance companies is total BS. I sat there with my mouth hanging open. I can't divulge details because of the confidentiality agreement I signed, but that doesn't mean I can't give my opinion. It is another way to redline, for one thing. And, after 30 days, the insurance inquiries are counted as if they were applications for credit. During the first 30 days, immediately follwing the app for insurance, they are not counted.
Were all these inquiries from the *exact* same dealership in that two week period? If so, then, yes, they were counted as one and your score would not hurt. What FICO neglects to clarify is that multiple inquiries within a given time period from the *same* source are counted as one. But multiple auto/house inquiries from various lenders are NOT counted as one - and this is what makes peoples' scores fall. Breeze is right. It's a way to trick consumers into allowing multiple credit checks (equals more money for the CRA) under the guise that these "multiple" inquiries are harmless.
