How Inquiries Effect Your Credit Score

Here are some guidelines to note about inquiries into your credit.

As a bad credit borower, you may be wondering "how many inquiries will it take to cause bad credit?" or "how many points do I lose per inquiry?" or "What's a hard inquiry?" or what's a soft inquiry? or "how can I get rid of junk mail credit card applications?

Inquires will influence bad credit so understanding how the inquiry system works may help you positively alter your credit management style.

• Inquiries account for as much as 10% of your FICO score.
• Too many inquiries into your credit history can have a negative impact to your credit score by as much as 55 points
• Having minimal inquires into your credit history can boost your score by as much as 55 points
• Research shows most applicants are somewhere in between these to extremes
• The credit bureaus must maintain a record of any inquiry to your credit
• How many points do you lose on an inquiry? There is no "fixed value" for the amount of points you lose per inquiry. If someone tells you that a lender "pulling your credit" for a credit card loan is always minus "4 points" don't believe them. The algorithms used to determine credit point deduction are incredibly complex; basically a complex "if-then" conditional model that measures hundreds of pieces of information against each other, only then deciding on a point deduction.
• Hard Inquiries are when a company like a bank, credit union, finance company, car dealer or any credit card issuer (dept store as well) will pull your history from Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.
• Hard Inquiries count only against your credit score for 12 months
• Soft Inquiries are when you request your own credit history
• Soft Inquiries do not impact your score at all
• Filling out and applying for credit card offers (the ones you get in the mail), will generate a hard inquiry
• When you apply for "12 months no payments or same as cash" or any other defered payment plan for furniture, appliances, or computer products it usually generates a hard inquiry
• If you don't want to receive junk mail credit card offers in the mail you can "opt-out" by going here: www.optoutprescreen.com
• Good news, multiple inquiries done while shopping for home or auto loans will be treated as "1 inquiry if done within 45 days"