How To Remove Inquiries From Your Credit Report

How to Remove Inquiries From Your Credit Report

When reviewing our credit reports, we often go to 2 areas first – the Adverse (negative) area and the Inquiry area. In the Inquiry section you’ll find 2 types of inquires:

Hard Inquires

The type of inquiry that negatively affects your credit score.

When you complete an application online, over the phone or in person granting a lender permission to pull your credit report in hopes of obtaining a loan of some sort, this is a hard inquiry. This type of inquiry applies to credit cards, lines of credit, car loans, home loans, etc.

For credit cards, each inquiry will result in a Hard Inquiry. For student loans, car loans, and mortgage loans, and apartment hunting FICO allows you to shop around for the best rate. As long as you do your rate hunting within 45 days you’ll only be ‘dinged’ once for the inquiry. So.. to avoid lowering your score, make your decision relatively quickly.

Soft Inquires

The type of inquiry that does not affect your credit score.

On your credit report Soft Inquires are listed as Account Review and Promotional Inquires. Account reviews are when you pull your own credit report and when creditors that you already have a relationship with pull your credit report.

Promotional inquiries occur when a business checks your credit report in hopes of offering you their product/service; this is completely legal as long as their inquiry is marked as ‘Promotional’ on your credit report. You can prevent this access, however, by visiting www.optoutprescreen.com and opting out.

I’ll post popular templates of Inquiry Removal Letters below; you can find more dispute letter templates inside of my free online community, CreditMakesSense.me.

Templates are just that… Templates. The best dispute letters are personal and customized to fit your unique credit circumstances 🙂 For more info on goodwill letters click here.

Original Credit Inquiry Removal Template:

[Your Full Name]
[Current Address]

[Creditor’s Name]
[Creditor’s Address]

RE: Unauthorized Credit Inquiry

To Whom It May Concern,

This letter is a notice to cease unauthorized inquires into my credit report and a formal demand that you immediately contact the credit reporting agencies and bureaus to have your illegal inquiries removed. While checking my personal credit report from {insert Credit bureau name}, I noticed an inquiry made by your organization.

The details of the inquiry are as follows:

Line number: [Line Number]
Inquiry made on: [Inquiry Date]
Inquiry made by: [Creditor]

To the best of my knowledge I have not approved your organization, any person associated with your organization, to make such an inquiry. This violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Section 1681b(c): Transactions Not Initiated by Consumer. I also demand that you remove my personal information from your records. Please send written confirmation that you have complied.

If you believe that you posses sufficient document that supports your authorization to make the inquiry, please forward a copy so that I may verify its validity.

I am using certified mail to ensure that you receive this letter and expect a prompt response.

Regards,

[Full Name]

Credit Bureau Inquiry Removal Template:

Date

Your Name
Your Address

Credit Bureau
Credit Bureau Address

To Whom it May Concern:

I recently pulled a copy of my credit report and noticed the following information are in error

RE: Inquires:

The FCRA states that the only permissible purpose for pulling someone’s credit report is a) firm offer of credit b) insurance c) employment or d) a court order.

The following inquiries are related to none of the aforementioned permissible purposes.
1. ABC Banking
2. Midwest Credit Card
3. FindYourLuck Shopping

Please remove these inquiries from my credit report. I have enclosed a copy of my driver’s license as proof of identity.

Sincerely,

Your Name

For more free dispute letter templates, please visit my free online community, CreditMakesSense.me!