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Disputes and Credit Inquiries

Credit inquiries occur when someone with a valid business reason, or permissible purpose, requests to view your credit report. Typically, promotional inquiries stay on your credit report for one year, while other soft inquiries and hard inquiries may stay on your credit report for two years.

  • If you don't recognize an inquiry, you should contact the company that checked your credit using the contact information in your credit report
  • A company doesn't always need your authorization to view your credit report as long as they have a permissible purpose
disputes inquiries

What do I do if I see an inquiry I don’t recognize on my credit report?

  1. Contact the lender directly to ask them about the inquiry. If they find it was made in error, ask them to inform the credit reporting agencies.
  2. If the lender finds the inquiry was made fraudulently, report it to the FTC. You’ll receive documentation, which you can use when disputing the fraudulent inquiry to the credit reporting agencies. Use our Fraud Companion Guide for step-by-step help.

What's the difference between a hard inquiry vs soft inquiry?

Hard Inquiry

  • May appear on your credit report when someone accessed your credit report in connection with an application for credit
  • Can be seen by lenders
  • May have a temporary negative impact your credit score

Soft Inquiry

  • May occur if you pull your own credit report using a monitoring service or get it directly from a credit reporting agency
  • May also occur when a company receives information to make an offer of credit, like a pre-approved credit card or loan offer; these are promotional inquiries
  • Can also occur when an insurer pulls your credit for underwriting purposes, an employer verifies your credit or if a landlord screens you as a potential tenant; these are referred to as account review inquiries
  • Some loans, like Buy Now, Pay Later installment loans, may also require a soft inquiry before you’re approved for a purchase
  • Won’t impact your credit score

If you’re interested in learning when and why your lenders are pulling your credit report, reach out to them.

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What You Need to Know:

The credit scores provided are based on the VantageScore® 3.0 model. Lenders use a variety of credit scores and are likely to use a credit score different from VantageScore® 3.0 to assess your creditworthiness.

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