Can Credit Repair Remove Inquiries?

A credit repair company can remove the hard inquiries from credit history for a fee, but inquiries are removed if they are the result of fraud. Rather than paying a company to do it for you, you can dispute a fraudulent inquiry by yourself for free. It is essential to be familiar with inquiries on your credit report not to see who’s requesting your credit history, but to ensure legitimate entities are getting your credit info. Because inaccurate and fraudulent inquiries can hurt your credit scores or, even worse, can indicate you are a victim of identity theft. Read on to find out more about inaccurate inquiries and why it is good for you to dispute them yourself.

Credit Inquiries or Credit Pulls
Businesses that extend credit which includes credit card issuers and mortgage lenders check your credit when you make the application for services with them. Reviewing your credit enables these businesses to determine whether you qualify for the type of account and service you are applying for. The major credit bureaus TransUnion, Equifax, Experian, and keep a record of all the businesses that requested the credit report and credit score. This record will be listed in a distinct section of the credit report for inquiries. All the credit inquiries known as credit pulls made to your credit report within the last 24 months are listed on your credit report.

Hard versus Soft Credit Inquiries
Hard inquiries are the type of credit pull that may affect the credit score, and they are the ones that businesses will see on your credit report. Credit inquiries that do not affect your score and do not look on your report are known as soft pulls. Instances of soft inquiries are that you are checking your own report and a potential employer accessing it during a background check. And credit card issuers can do soft inquiries when they’re preparing promotional card offer.

How Do Credit Repair Companies Work?
Credit repair companies charge customers a fee to remove wrong info from their credit reports. They can charge hundreds or thousands of dollars to find inaccurate negative information in their customers’ credit histories and dispute them with the major customer credit bureaus. The companies of Credit repair do not have any specific way of disputing wrong information that is not available to the public. Actually, these companies are regulated by the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA), a law that needs them to offer customers a written contract specifying the services they’ll offer, and provide those customers 3 days to cancel the contract. Additionally, these companies cannot promise to remove accurate information or accept payment unless they fulfill the contract. That means you have as much power in your hands to get inaccurate or fraudulent inquiries deleted from your credit report without paying for it.

What you should Do if You Have Inaccurate Inquiries
The 1st step to determining whether you have inaccuracies in the credit file is to get a free credit report and go over it in detail. There are 2 kinds of inquiries that can be on your report: hard inquiries, soft inquiries. A soft inquiry is the result of a pre-screened and preapproved credit offer from a company, you have a relationship with, or of you getting a copy of your credit report. Soft inquiries have no impact on your credit score, so there is no reason you need to get them eliminated. On the other hand, a hard inquiry reflects a usual app for a new credit account. Having a couple of recent hard inquiries on your credit report is unlikely to have an important effect on your credit score. But having many recent hard inquiries may have an impact on your score. There will be more effect if the inquiry is more recent. When you see a hard inquiry that you do not identify, there are many steps you can take. First, contact the company listed on the report, as it can be an inquiry, you approved but one that is listed under an unfamiliar company name or acronym. Other unfamiliar inquiries may be from services that shop around for different offers. Thankfully, credit scoring formulas consider repeated inquiries in a short period to apply for a single loan, limiting their impact on your credit score. But if you have investigated the hard inquiry and determined, you did not authorize it, you can dispute it as a fraud. To do that, contact the company that reported the inquiry, and the credit reporting bureaus.

We know that your credit can make or break you, so we work hard to create personalized processes around the needs of each individual. Our new credit repair location in Miami FL is designed for people who want an even more tailored experience than before!