My understanding is that under FCRA you cannot be dinged for "too many inquiries" if they are all clearly mortgage rate shopping and all within a brief period. I have four - three one day and one 8 days later - and Experian is dinging me for it saying that this is "excessive inquiries" Moreover, customer-no-service says that this is fine, know nothing about any law that says they can't, then falls back on "well it's up to individual creditors to intepret the data ma'am, we can't be held responsible if they consider it when they shouldn't - but never mind that Experian's own fake-o score is considering it! Is there a link/source to any laws/rules about the rate shopping exemption in scoring?
Go to Myfico.com and download the booklet on understanding your credit. It goes into all the issues involved in credit scoring, including shopping for the best loans in a certain period of time.
I think it depends how the search is listed - they need to be the same e.g "mortgage loan inquiry" to be counted together. Of course they never are, so consequently are counted seperately. If they are with EX or EQ dispute the searches one at a time for the companies you don't open accounts with and they will usually delete these - TU on the other hand is another story and if anyone has found a way of getting these pinheads to delete inquiries I would love to hear how!
Thanks! They ARE all listed as "mortgage loan" inquiries -- the CRA just acts as if that is up to individual creditors to discern that (and then somehow magically "up" your score in their own formula to compensate? -- which, I fear, with the prevalance of reliance on the "easy FICO score" by lenders, most lenders won't bother to do. It is one of the most important rankings of our lives and yet fraught with mismanagement. Thank you fellow credit warriors!
Kseab, the CRA's aren't required to code mortgage inquiries as one per the FCRA. I had this same problem last year with excessive inq's from mortgage shopping. After many complaints, FAIR ISSACS supposedly revamped their software with the CRA's so mortgage and auto inq's are supposed to be counted as ONE within a certain time frame. The only CRA that actually has done this is EQ, at least for me. It's really unfair, you should be allowed to rate shop for the best rate without tanking your scores, which was the intention of FAIR ISSACS's software to count certain inq's as one, but somehow it just doesn't work a lot of the times. And the CRA's could generally care less.
Multiple mortgage and car loans (in a certain period of time) COUNT AS ONE...DON'T BET THE FARM ON IT!!!
Is there anything afoot - legislative wise - to truly address these glaring errors in the prevalent (and growing daily!) "scoring" of our very beings? Not that venting here doesn't serve a purpose as well ...
I was denied recently by amex due to 5 car loan apps. They are sorry, they don't count them as one. Thats a myth. lol.
