Marie has previously suggested that promotional inquiries (PRM INQ's) hurt one's credit score. I disagreed at the time. However, I've recently been looking into it, and have found additional facts to support her suggestion. (This is not a good time for me to elaborate, but I promise to do that soon). I urge everyone who cares about the number of inquiries on his/her report to opt-out by calling the bureaus' toll-free # (888-567-8688). Saar
Saar, I opted out the first week in June. I've said here before that I believe companies who were doing PRM's were creating databases with the info obtained and in some cases using the data against us or selling it. I have no plans to opt back in at this point. I am VERY interested in what you were able to find out. Mist
Hi Saar! When you elaborate on this , I will carefully evaluate what you have to say. I have a very high opinion of your and Marie's opinions. Also, I plan to buy to buy my 1st post-BK home in 18 months so I want my credit score as high as possible. However... I did not optout as I do a lot of post BK banking and credit transactions with credit unions. The CU's look at my credit and send me preapproved auto loans and credit card limit increases after dong a "PRM". Unlike the bank and insurance PRM based offers - the CU PRM based offers are not conditional. They are real offers and I do not want to miss out on them. When you and Marie validate the utility of "opting out" to improve a mortgage credit score, I will reconsider. Best regards - Jim
Jim All experiential proof I've seen is within a 90+ the beginning of the next month. Meaning: when you think you want a mortgage opt out 4 or so months before and you'll get a bump. For mortgage purposes, I've been told by a reliable source that you recoup most inquiry points on the mortgage scores after 90 days but you need the 1st day of the next month to get the better score. Also, the rescoring stuff is for 600s scores. I believe 2 of your scores are now 700+ so this may help some but you really have no issues with scores like that and your last 24 mos pre-mortgage will be perfect and that's what they really look at for rates. And, if you opt out do the 2 year opt out and after you get the new mortgage you can always opt back in. Lastly, when preparing the TU lawsuit I looked over my reports to death. That's when I really noticed the differentiation between the 3 groups of inquiries. Take a look at your own hard copy of a TU report. they break it down for us. Group1: The following Cos have received your credit report... blah. These are the "hard" inquiries and our own. Group2: The Cos below received your name, address and other limited information about you so they could make a firm offer of credit or insurance. They did not receive your full credit report, and these inquiries are NOT SEEN BY ANYONE BUT YOU. Group3: The Cos listed below obtained information from your consumer report for the purpose of an account review and other business transaction with you. These inquiries ARE NOT DISPLAYED TO ANYONE BUT YOU AND WILL NOT AFFECT ANY CREDITOR'S DECISION OR ANY SCORE. So, TU does put it on paper. Only group 3 doesn't affect our scores. On a side note, Group 1 Consumer Disclosures aren't viewed by creditors... but I am now worried with all the multiple consumer disclosures that we do now that these might hit the score too... who knows.
Marie, That would be an interesting topic to check out regarding consumer disclosure inquiries. TU pulled four of them on June 2 on me. Can't understand why, I should have only had one for the updated report I received in the middle of June. Another question, if they pulled 4 consumer disclosures on 6/2, why is my report dated 6/15? Wait, my receipt of dispute letter is dated 6/2, but there is no consumer disclosure for the actual updated report. Same is true for the one consumer disclosure inquiry done in July. The inquiry was done on 7/17 and my "We have received your disputes" letter is dated 7/17, the updated report is dated 8/13, but no inquiry for the 8/13. I would think the updated report would reflect the consumer disclosure date and not the receipt of disputes letter. If you do find that these type of inquiries do impact your score, although only you see it, it really bothers me that TU ran 4 of these on 6/2. I never thought of it, but if they do not affect score and we are talking score only (because no one else is supposed to see this type of inquiry but the consumer for whom the report was pulled), then why is this type of inquiry not shown in Group #3 of inquiries? Marie, you are really making me think about this now that you have actually put this into perspective. Please keep us updated. I have not opted out yet, but may in the future. I also find it interesting that CU's run PRM inquiries, I have not seen any of these on my reports yet. However, if they want to run one and send my an application for a pre-approved Visa card with no conditions, by all means, I would welcome it since their rates are lower.
My scores appeared to drop a few points after I subscribed to their monitoring services. But who knows.....? breeze
Waiting 90+ days probably won't help confirm or refute it; Our score is determined based on hundreds of variables; Any attempt to isolate the effect of this particular one (for such a long period) is destined to fail. During these 90+ days, one's accounts would age, debt ratios would change, as would the "last payment amount" for each one of the tradelines. And that's assuming no negative info has been added to, or removed from, one's credit file. Any further inquiries or new accounts would have a negative effect on one's score for at least 6 months. However, there are other, indirect ways to learn more about it. One of them is available to those who are enrolled in Creditability.com. Saar
90 days is the time period when inquiries hurt the scores the most for mortgage models. So the 3 months allows your score to heal from previos inquiries which makes sense. 90+ is the recommendation because you need the full 3 months and then you want to pull your score again on the 3rd or so of the month following the 3 months so it's always 90+ days. The rescoring expert I talked with was very funny about keeping the variables to a minimum so that the inquiries could be isolated as much as they can be. Of course, another friend at Fair Isaac admitted that the formula fluctuates hourly depending on outside factors (but we already know we can't control that part of the formula) and aging is always a factor... but we all know that. And of course, if you're trying to do a quick bump for a reason like a mortgage or car loan or something... don't apply for a thing during this period I have actually gained over 40 points in 2 months on TU but I can attribute 24 of those to 3 deletions of student loans. the other 16 points I can't attribute but I'll take them. Puts me at 681 with the bk showing
I think it is very admirable that Marie and Saar are investigating this "PRM Inquiry Matter" for us on the board. This is a fascinating topic that may help us all when we apply for a mortgage. I cretainly want to be informed as more information becomes available. In the interim, I plan to give my Ford Explorer to my daughter and buy a new vehicle etc. before I buy a house in 18 months. Therefore, I want the credit offers to come my way via PRM's from the CU's and banks. Marie - Congrats on the 680's credit score!!! You and I have a similar credit history and we have both come a long way. LOL. Best regards, Jim
I ran across this thread while rummaging (with real rum!) through the basement. With so many new members, I thought it might be valuable to bring it to the surface.
Maybe we could use this thread to also explore (or at least list) some of the other first quick steps that should be taken when we start gearing up for battle. How to get some of the low hanging fruit, so to speak. In my own limited experience, some of the prep work that was most helpful was to go online to each of the CRA's and dispute personal information that was old. Like many, I've moved a few times, and some of those older accounts don't have the current info. So, I got all of my old addresses deleted. Also, alternate spellings of my name and old employers. Anything to make it harder to match an account to me. Definitely helped get a couple of old paid utility collections deleted. I also did online disputes of inquiries. Got a lot of them deleted-- most, in fact. I'll be going back for more soon. I think those two moves helped when I sent in some disputes. Out of about seventy five disputed items (betwen my wife's CR''s and mine), forty or so were deleted or changed to positive after two tries. I then ran up aginst the wall "already verified, will not reinvestigate", but getting the easy ones out of the way first makes it easier to focus on the hard cases. Any other "low hanging fruit" ideas out there? ( And no, that's not a sexual reference!)
