What Do Inquiries on My Credit Report Mean?

Anytime your or anyone else checks on your credit it is noted in your credit report as an inquiry and becomes a part of your credit history. Applying for several credit cards in a short period of time will generate several inquiries and this indicates a flurry of activity on your account. Potential lenders checking your credit report will see these inquiries and think that you have recently applied for lots of credit and may turn you down. They may also think that you have been turned down for credit recently and use this as a reason for denying you a loan. That is why you need to use the free credit report process to get you credit card report and monitor your own report.

A potential lender may tell you that you have had excessive inquiries into your credit as the reason you are being denied a loan. The lender has guidelines to use that tell how many inquiries in a short period of time is reason for denying a loan. If this is the reason you are given for the denial you have no legal resource to challenge the decision. They do not even have to tell you what constitutes too many inquiries. Using your free credit card report will let you know exactly how many inquiries you have had and who they were.

You should not give your name and address to a merchant until you have really decided to apply for credit through them. Some merchants have been known to run a credit check on you prematurely in order to get information to help them influence your purchase. They will be able to know how much you owe and what your credit line is. They then will have an idea on how to approach you with a more expensive model or press for a lot of accessories to go with your purchase. If you get the free credit card report, you will be able to see if you have had any unauthorized inquiries into your credit rating.

Once you get your free credit card report, check to see who mad the inquiries. If there are some on there that you did not authorize there is a process to get them removed. Get the names and addresses of those and write a letter to them. Tell them that they have made an authorized check on your credit and you want them to remove the inquiry. Some will remove the inquiry rather than try to prove you had authorized a search. This is the goal. You do not have to remove all the inquiries just enough to keep you from being denied credit.

Keeping your credit report as clean is possible should be your goal. Practicing good consumer credit is the way to do that. Using the free credit report to check your report is the way to make sure you are doing what needs to be done.