Credit Inquiries: How They Affect Your Credit History


Before you qualify for a loan or a credit line from any source, the lender will be sure to check your credit history. When you receive "pre-approved" credit card offers in the mail, you can be sure that the company offering you the card has checked your credit first. If credit check s or inquiries are run too often on you, however, it can damage your credit history and limit your ability to borrow money or be charged a low interest rate.
Credit checks and inquires are done in two different ways, and only one of them actually affects your credit history. When you apply for mortgages, loans, or lines of credit and a credit check or inquiry is run because of your having applied, it will appear on your credit history. Your credit score will get lower each time you apply for credit. Since credit inquiries can affect your credit score negatively, you should try to keep the number of credit applications you fill out to a minimum.
Of course, it is always wise to look at various offers to find the best loan possible. When many mortgage or car loan related credit checks are run within thirty days of each other they are counted as one single inquiry instead of several separate ones. Consumers who are wise enough to shop around for a good loan are no longer punished on their credit history.
The other credit inquiries are those made by business that you have not authorized to get your information. Anyone with a permissible purpose (defined by the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act) has the ability to check your credit history ? without you even knowing about it.
Credit card companies, retail stores, and many other businesses that have a "permissible purpose" and want you to take money from them (for the right price) will pull your credit history to determine if you are eligible for one of their pre-approved opportunities. These inquiries will not affect your credit history or hurt your credit score, but they will show up on your report so that you will know who is looking into your business.Prospective employers may also pull your credit history, and this is another type of inquiry that will not affect your credit score.
Any time a business pulls your credit history, it is marked on a report for you to view. These credit checks or credit inquiries can ultimately hurt your credit score, but only those credit inquires that you request will affect you in the end.



About the Author

Tire of struggling to keep up with your credit card balances? Learn how to deal with excessive credit card debt on the Debtopedia website. Visit http://www.debtopedia.com for a free copy of my "Secrets Of Credit Card Debt" report.


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