Posts Tagged Credit Inquiries

How Does Applying For a Credit Card Hurt Me?

Manshu Verma asked:




How does applying for a credit card hurt my credit score?

Every time you apply for a credit card, the credit card company makes an inquiry into your credit report. These are also known as hard pulls. Each of these credit inquiries or hard pulls, take away around 5 points from your credit score.

The rationale behind taking away points from your credit score when you apply for credit, is that, it is harder to control multiple lines of credit when compared to just a few. It also shows a tendency that leans towards getting excessive credit and then getting into a spending spiral, which may become difficult for you to get out of and as a result your chances of default become high.

These inquiries show on your credit report for a period of one to two years, but the dent in score itself will be rectified in about a couple of months, if you do not abuse your newly available credit.

If your credit application gets approved, then your score will rise fairly quickly because the additional line of credit will give you a boost. Along with this, your ‘debt is to available credit’ ratio will also improve and that will help boost your score too.

Be aware of the credit application spiral

The people who are worse hit are the people whose credit application gets rejected. When their application gets rejected, their score goes down. However, since their application has been rejected, they apply again thereby reducing their score further and chances are that they will get rejected once again. This is a vicious circle and if you get into this kind of thing four or five times, then your credit score takes a bigger hit.

So be careful, and next time you are tempted to apply for that store credit card that will give you $10 off on a new shirt, think twice!

Jamie

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Do Credit Inquires Hurt Your Credit Score?

Mike Clover asked:




A credit inquiry is an item on your credit report that shows with permission a creditor requested your free credit score report.

Not all credit inquiries affect your credit score:

You may notice when you pull your credit report there are inquiries on there from a business you are not familiar with. The only inquiry that affects your credit score is the one where you are applying for credit. This is considered a hard pull on your report.

Inquiries that affect your credit score:

There is only one type of inquiry that affects your score. This type of inquiry is applications for a mortgage, auto loan and other credit, by you authorizing these creditors to access your credit report. This type of inquiry prompted by your own actions ends up on your personal credit report and affects your score.

An inquiry that does not affect your credit score: Checking your own personal credit report or any business that offers goods and services that requests your report. A business that you already have a account with that requests a check. A potential employer that does credit checks. Some of these types of inquiries might show up on your report but do not affect your credit score.

Checking your credit report does not affect your score:

Checking your credit report on a regular basis to ensure it is accurate and error free is recommended by Fair Isaac the inventor of the FICO Score. Maintaining a error free report is part of credit management which will improve your credit rating over time. Ordering your credit report at CreditScoreQuick.com does not hurt your credit score.

How credit inquiries are factored in your Credit Score:

There are five types of information used to calculate your credit score. Each category accounts towards a percentage of your score.

Payment History – 35%

Amounts Owed – 30%

Length of Credit History – 15%

Types of Credit in use – 10%

New Credit – 10%

Don’t let inquires scare you. There is nothing wrong with shopping for a better rate, or better terms on a loan. As you can see in the about chart, payment history is the biggest factor in calculation process of your credit score. The second biggest factor is how much of your approved credit limits are charged up. But of course you don’t want to go out and start applying for every credit offer out there either. Be responsible and have a good mix of credit, but stay away from too much credit as well You really on need 3 lines of credit reporting on your report.

Example:

1. credit card

2. car note

3. installment loan

This type of credit mix accounts for 10% of your score.

Keith

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