Is there a way to get a "Hard" inquiry off your report from a current creditor?

Dallas Student · 07-25-2007, 09:46 PM

My sister has an account with a creditor that is in good standing, been opened like 12 years, has never been late.

She pulls her 3 CR today and finds a hard inquiry from yesterday. We're guessing it's from this creditor. However, when we pulled a true EX for her, we see that they had been pulling soft pulls (3 times earlier this year, and it was 2005 prior to that). She hasn't recently started to use the account, and if this is a normal account review pull, I figure that it should have been done as a soft.

She's freaking out, because she had no inquiries on her EX at all, and doesn't want the drop in her credit score that it will cause. I know that the creditors can pull credit in any manner that they want, but is there a way to get rid of the hard?

TIA.

Enigma · 07-25-2007, 10:23 PM

Since she has not used the account, the creditor is probably checking to see if she is still qualified for the account and / or checking to see if she has excess credit.

She should make small purchases to show age and activity.

To answer your question there is basically no method for removal or to prevent a permissible purpose pull.

Dallas Student · 07-25-2007, 10:39 PM

Oh she actually has used the account. It was maxed out $5K at one time. She's currently paying down the balance. But hasn't written a LOC check from the account in quite some time now.

But she didn't ask for any more credit or anything like that, so we were just curious to know why they would all of a sudden pull a hard after pulling soft inquiries in the past.

I mean do you think that she could write them and ask them to remove it? I dunno because I've never had this happen to me before.

TIA.

Enigma · 07-25-2007, 10:54 PM

After maxing out the LOC then repaying it slowly, they are probably just checking her scores and if there are any delinquent accounts. She needs to read the loan docs to learn what the terms and conditions are to keep the LOC.

She can call to inquire about the pull but she runs the risk of raising a red flag with the lender. Pulls are normal and like I said there is really not much she can do.

My understanding of the FICO scoring algorithm is that a pull from a current creditor does not affect the score as much as if she were shopping for new lines.

Tell her to relax and keep the usage of the LOC at 30% or below and she'll be fine.

Hedwig · 07-25-2007, 11:29 PM

I think one inquiry isn't going to hurt her much. In fact, depending on her score range, it could be only a point or two. Having a lot of inquiries is what lowers the score.

I wouldn't worry about it.

Dallas Student · 07-26-2007, 02:15 AM

Thanks to all!

I will tell her to try not to freak out.