When you’re aiming for a better credit score, the last thing you want is to have your credit score take a hit. Unfortunately, little errors and mishaps can lower your score. One common reason for this is the “unauthorized credit inquiry”.
Essentially what happens, is that some unknown party does a credit pull and reviews your profile for an application that you may be unaware of. As strange and devious as it may seem, unauthorized credit inquiries happen more than most realize. Fortunately, you can prevent these mischievous little acts from affecting you. Who’s Fault is it Anyway? It’s one thing to accept a credit limit on an existing card or to ask for a loan. You know that a hard inquiry will follow. But what if you haven’t applied for any of the sort in months or years? How does a credit inquiry just appear on your profile? There are a number of parties that can cause these problems including:
The list goes on. However, the ones mentioned above tend to be the most common sources of problems. There are two issues that occur with these unknown credit pulls. First, the other party doesn’t openly inform you that they will pull your credit. Because of this, you may see no harm in agreeing to upgrade or accept an offer, especially if it seems to have some obvious benefits. Second, it’s easy to forget that you applied for these accounts in the first place. Many of these accounts won’t affect your finances in any major way, so you might hastily accept an offer, perhaps, while lined up at a store or talking over the phone. The Resulting Issues of Unauthorized Credit Inquiries There’s one major problem that comes with unauthorized credit pulls: a lower score. And as mentioned from the start, that’s the complete opposite of what you want if you’re looking to rebuild or maintain good credit. There is a trickle-down effect of course. The points that a series of unauthorized hard inquiries take off are usually low (around five or so). Nevertheless, they take you further away from the numbers that will get you approved for the best loans. And if you’re on the edge of loan approval, just a small deduction in points can mean that you no longer qualify. Serious indeed! Tips to Fight Unauthorized Credit Pulls and Avoid Them in the Future So how do you keep the hands of unwanted lenders and companies away from your credit profile? You have to stay ahead of them to beat them at their own game. To put it simply, everytime someone offers you an upgrade, store account or card, remind yourself that they could pull your credit without you knowing. That alone may help you decide whether you want to proceed or back off. It isn’t always this simple, however, and that means you might have to take things a bit further.
An unauthorized credit inquiry is frustrating to anyone, but even more so to the person who’s looking to improve their score. If it’s happened to you, don’t let it bring you too much stress. The number of points that they knock off is fairly small, and if you didn’t authorize the credit extension, you will likely have no issue proving that it’s fraudulent. More importantly, leave no stone unturned. Be diligent in your search for errors and ask as many questions as possible to get the info you need. In doing so, you will build a much stronger case for yourself. visit us at www.qualitytradelines.com if you have any credit questions
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
QUALITY TRADE LINES
WE PROVIDE TRADE LINES & HELP YOU GET FUNDING WITH CREDIT CARDS AND LINES OF CREDIT Archives
June 2019
Categories |