02/13/2019
QUESTION: While looking for a new car the auto dealer shopped the best rate for a loan, generating seven or eight hard credit inquiries, which have dropped my score. Can I have these hard inquiries removed?
ANSWER: Because the law requires that your personal credit report list all organizations that have requested it, the inquiries cannot be removed. However, most credit scoring systems allow people to shop for the best rates on car loans without having any significant negative impact on their credit scores. Today, credit scoring systems count all inquiries for auto loans within a given period of time, usually around 14 days, as a single inquiry.
Car dealerships often send your application to multiple lenders at the same time in a process called "shotgunning" to find the best loan terms. As a result, lenders compete for the loan and the consumer benefits by getting the best rates and finance terms available to them.
If the drop in your score was in fact due to the loan application with the auto dealer, it should have had the same impact, whether there were eight inquiries or just one.
Although inquiries can have an impact on credit scores, that impact is typically small and temporary. Some credit scoring systems no longer count them at all after one year.
It is also important to be aware that the impact of inquiries decreases over time, so your credit scores should rebound fairly quickly, assuming there are not other issues with your credit history.
If you are trying to improve your credit score, pay close attention to the primary risk factors. Addressing these factors will help to increase all your credit scores, regardless of the scoring system or formula being used.
Inquiries won't affect a lending decision unless there are other, more serious issues, that are causing your scores to be marginal.
Contact us today to get your credit back on track.
As a full-service credit restoration and education company, we improve your credit score by helping you remove inaccurate, unverifiable and obsolete items from your credit file.
