What's white is black and what's black is white!! Ok I think I am beginning to figure out this scoring process. This is my theory. What is one thing on credit file that most creditors or CRA will tell you does not count for much.... INQUIRIES. Wrong! I read many posts and heard similar stories about inquiries. Creditors solicit you all the time in the mail with preapprove offers, you apply and then you are denied, oops ..... wasted inquiry, lets say you respond to at 5 similar inquiries and you get approved for 3 out of five. Now that is 5 inquiries on your file and guess what happens to your score....down, down, down. Guess what your rates and fees are going to be? Your score is lower, and who knows who really owns which credit card company considering banks are eating each other up everyday,, Well the scenario is Big bank sends you this great offer to respond and you think oh my credit is better I can get their card, not! They deny you, then you get a mailer from Big Bank's small bank offering a good deal at first, but no where as good as Big Bank and they actually approve you but a few months down, the APR changes, guess what your score has changed to. Justification for higher rates. Lets say you feel you are on a roll, more inquiries, your score goes down. Remember inquiries stay on there for 2yrs and the line of most CRAS is that your score is most affected by items on your file for the past 2 years. What black is white and what's white is black. Inquiries do not hurt your score, false! But they remain on your file for 2 years and if you have more than 5 in a year your score can be adversely affected. No matter how good you are paying. Anyone ever wonder why the CRAS would be so unresponsive to disputing inquiries. Experian finally is allowing disputes of inquiries, but I wonder after how much prodding did they finally decide to do it. Does anyone know if Equifax or Transunion is allowing disputes for inquiries?
I don't know if Equifax or Transunion are, but I've tried it online all the same. They say you can only dispute judgements, credit items, bankruptcy, etc, but they do have a box to mark called "other" and then a little blank space to type into. I've already disputed 5 inquiries on TU. Let's just see.
Sorry had to add some inpute. I diputed inquiries with all 3 CRA's. Equifax was the only one that responded and deleted 5 inquiries. So they are allowing consumers to dispute inquiries. I did it via mail. When I did it online, I would put "Inquiry not mine" in the account number box. This did yield some success, but only to a certain extent. Good Luck
When did you do this? Because before I started on my campaign a month and a half ago, the Equifax reps, told me they do not handle inquiry disputes and that you would have to deal with the creditor who placed the inquiry. Of course you did say you sent it by mail. That probably makes the biggest difference. I will definitely be sending out my letters. How much did your score increase? That is good to know. Thanks Cyprigirl
Me too. Well, Junum disputed my inquiries and they said inquiries are a matter of record and they don't dispute them. I'd sure like to get ride of some of my inquiries. Reshod, were these valid inquiries?
Caprigirl, I believe their is some justification to your premise,but you need to take it to the next level. Just the idea that inquiries will actually be deleted indicates a few things things to me. 1) The cra official stance of inquiries not being disputable is reluctantly being changed.Its changing,not because they are really nice people,but because that claim is not defendable under FCRA.AND they know it(and KNOWN it) 2)Inquiries were given more weight because it was 1 of the few things that could not be corrupted on a file.5 inquiries meant 5 inquiries, not 5 inquiries out of 10, that were verified. 3)The idea that inquiries can be disputed will lower their impact on fico scores over time and shift weighting to other criteria. (Can You say NEXT NEXTGEN?) 4)There is so much info available on a credit file they won't have to look far.They can tell if you have a classic,gold or platinum card and what bank issued it by the first 6 digits of the card(mostly).It just dawned on me that it should be possible to extrapolate the APR on a cc acct by knowing the balance(which is available) and the minimum payment amount.(which is also available on the report)as the balance payback is usually either 2 or 3% monthly, with the rest of the min payment devoted to interest charged that month. One more tidbit.... Now that the fallacy that inquiries were non disputable is falling by the wayside it is interesting to note that experian still holds one item as non-disputable in their online dispute investigations.That is the last lines of your personal info if it show "This is a Non-Residential Address. If you try to dispute it will only offer to allow you to write a 100 word explanation to be added. What do you thing the weighting of that is? VJ
Unfortunately this part of the Nazi propaganda was true: If you repeat a lie endlessly, it is eventually perceived as the truth. But a lie is all it is, even if nurtured by the credit bureaus An inquiry reported as one made for permissible purpose cannot, I repeat, cannot be a matter of record. The definition of "permissible purpose" within the meaning of the FCRA is not, and will never be, a matter of record. If you've been treated that way but won't file an online FTC complaint against this illegal practice of the Bureaus, then you probably deserve it. If we all act together and continue the mass-filing of FTC complaints, then a change could be near. Saar
I disputed it in writing and they declined to investigate. So I called to let them know I will litigate and that they don't have a chance since I had it in writing that they failed to investigate. This was enough to call their bluff - they removed it on the spot. Saar
VJ you are exactly right, as we are able to dispute our inquiries more, they will find another factor to distort our score with. They could try how many different addresses you have had in the past couple years or employment changes, who knows but they will always continue to raise the bar. The trick here I think is to stay ahead of the average consumer, who has never looked at their credit report and remain one step behind or if not even with the CRAS. Cyprigirl
Cyprigirl, The Experian "Creditexpert" site sure agrees with your heavy emphasis on inquiries dragging down a credit score. Saar's comment about Nazi propaganda was appropriate. As a side issue, I had 3 hard inquiries on my Equifax report. I got one removed by contacting the credit card company. It took work and negotiation but I now have only 2 inquiries. I am disputing one of the 2 remaining EQ inquiries with a credit card company right now. The last inquiry is over one year old and from a cell phone company, so I don't intend to dispute. I only have one (1) inquiry on Trans Union - so I don't intend to dispute.
Has anyone gotten any more results in disputing inquiries with Experian. They put a notice on my files that the investigation last for 30 days. I guess they were a little overhelmed by everyone disputng their inquiries. Cyprigirl
