How to Remove Inquiries From Your Credit Report
Globally, your credit rating is crucial when it comes to borrowing funds. Possessing a favorable credit score allows you to access loans with more attractive interest rates and conditions, and it simplifies the process of locating a reputable lender to collaborate with.
It is a good idea to learn what negatively impacts your credit scores, so you can avoid it in order to make borrowing as easy and affordable as possible. Some things in particular that have the potential to hurt your credit score are inquiries. This blog post is going to look a little more closely at these inquiries and how you can remove them.
What are Inquiries?
Inquires are split into two kinds, hard and soft inquiries. A soft inquiry is when you yourself either check your credit score or when a lender checks your credit before sending you an offer. A hard inquiry, on the other hand, occurs when you apply for a new loan or credit card. It is generally done to check your credit and make sure they are comfortable giving you a loan or new credit card.
While a soft inquiry is unlikely to have any impact on your credit score, a hard inquiry will normally take your credit score down a little, but it will eventually bounce back. Also, having numerous hard inquiries on your report can make you appear a little more risky to many lenders.
Can You Remove Inquiries?
Because they can have an impact on your credit score and ability to borrow money, many people want to remove these from their credit report. But is this possible? The answer is that it depends. If the hard inquiry is genuine, and stems from you actually applying for a new loan or credit card, you will generally be unsuccessful in attempting to get it wiped from your report.
But if the inquiry is not legitimate, there might be a chance to get it removed. This can be whether you didn’t authorize the credit inquiry, or you haven’t applied for any new credit that should have led to the inquiry. Be sure to take annual looks at your credit report and keep an eye out for anything that looks fraudulent or simply wrong.
So now that you know that some inquiries can be removed, how do you go about doing so? Well, once you discover the potential error or fraud, you want to report it quickly. You should report the error to the credit bureau (and potentially even law enforcement if you feel that your identity might have been stolen). This can often be done online, but you could also consider mailing your request. The length of the review process can differ, but will generally be done in a month or sooner. Once the process is done, you will be able to see whether the dispute was successful and the inquiry was removed, or if it still remains.
Remember, while you may attempt to remove legitimate inquiries from your report, it is unlikely to be successful. In these cases, you just have to wait long enough for these to naturally fall off of your credit report. This can vary in terms of the time it takes, but will generally take around 2 years, though your report will steadily improve over time if nothing else occurs that would bring it back down.
In conclusion, we hope that this article has been able to help you remove inquiries from your credit report. While removing legitimate inquiries may prove difficult, fraudulent or unauthorized inquiries can certainly be removed if you follow the right process.
