Posted by Christine Baker on July 29, 1997 at 15:33:48:
In Reply to: Multiple inquiries lower scores posted by D. Mortensen on July 28, 1997 at 10:37:49:
:Don't make the mistakes we made - we shopped multiple car dealers - a total of 6 in a matter of a couple of weeks. Interest rate shopping will hurt your credit rating!!!
So true! A few months ago I was told that Fair Isaac planned to change the scoring software to treat all inquiries within a 7 day period as one inquiry because they realized the car shopping was a problem.
Of course, once again the careful shopper who doesn't just go out and buy the car in one weekend gets punished with the lower FICO Score. The entire system is set up to discourage consumers from researching and taking their time to make educated decisions.
I don't know if that "7 day inquiries = 1 inquiry" change has been implemented and I also don't know how it works exactly. Does is always count all inquiries in a 7 day period as 1 inquiry? Or is it a one time deal?
And to make things more complicated, I have to say that I'm usually only talking about Scoring for mortgages. Credit card, auto loan and consumer finance scoring is also based on other Scores. The principles are similar, but they're not necessarily identical.
:We also learned that the dealer's financing connections won't lock in quoted rates until you fill out the credit application (cute, huh?). WWW users alert: We also applied on-line for a service, didn't get a response back on the first application within 72 hours so we reapplied on line - now we find out that both inquiries showed up on our credit report, even though the company insisted they never received the first application.
1) On several of my pages I recommend NOT using the on-line forms to apply for loans. You usually don't get a copy of what you submitted. Personally, I nearly ALWAYS (except for really unimportant stuff) use E-mail instead of the on-line forms for any purpose. I like to know WHAT I sent and WHEN I sent it.
I have seen forms which will E-mail you a copy of your submission, a much better approach.
2) Not all on-line services are equal. And, off-line lenders also often run the credit twice or unauthorized.
If you publicize the companies who screw up, and most important, you notify them of the publication and ask for their response, they will realize that they cannot continue to provide poor service and damage consumers' credit ratings without getting bad publicity.
Until they are publicly held responsible for their actions, they have no reason to spend money on better customer service, training, employees, accounting, etc., etc.
I'd like to see a new posting with the subject "www.company.com ran credit twice and probably lowered my credit Score." I will forward the posting to them and ask for their statement.
Chances are that they don't even realize that they most likely lowered your credit Score.