Credit Inquiries: Watching People Who Are Watching Your Credit Report Part 1
written by Credit-HQ ExpertIn the movies, being watched is the stuff of thrillers and science fiction. Alfred Hitchcock had a lot of fun with that theme. But in real life, you really are being watched in the form of various institutions keeping an eye on some very personal details represented in your credit report. There are lots of reasons that various business entities check your credit report. So its worthwhile to turn the tables and watch the people who are watching your credit report so you know what they are up to.
Just about anyone that you enter into a financial relationship with may have looked at your credit report in the last couple of years. That includes landlords or the mortgage company if you tried to buy a house. It includes employers, banks and even utility companies. They all take a peek at your credit report to make sure you are a reasonable person to do business with.
It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who is watching you. You can order a copy of your credit report and get details of every organization who has checked your credit report over a two year time. When you receive your copy of your report, just look down at the section called “credit inquiries” and you will learn all you need to know. This can be a very revealing study and in a way, you will feel like a detective looking down the list of who is checking up on you and setting about to figure out why.
Now it is appropriate to get some perspective on what you are seeing under “credit inquiries.” Be prepared to see quite an impressive number of entries from companies that you don’t know. Don’t panic. This is not a sign of a hoard of identity thieves storming your credit report. Those entries are from companies who submitted a request for your report to determine if the wanted to send you a promotional offer or in some other way try to capture your business. These are harmless inquiries that will not drive down your credit score.
Another classification of organizations you might see watching your credit report are institutions that you already do business with. Your bank, the companies who handle your bad credit cards and other lending institutions pay a lot of attention to the credit reports of their customers. And like the inquiries of advertisers, these types of credit report requests are nothing to worry about. Your credit score cannot be hurt just because people who know you are keeping track of your credit progress.
The entries on the list of people checking up on you that can give you cause to worry are the ones from businesses that are looking at your credit because of a new credit application from you. You should know every one of these businesses because they would not have sent in an inquiry except to have credit check to determine if they would enter into a financial relationship with you. Now, if your credit score is strong and you don’t apply for new credit very often, this is not a cause to worry. But if you have a problem credit score and particularly if there are a lot of new credit applications on your credit report, that will lower your credit score noticeably which will only make it more difficult to build your good credit back up.
This is no cause for paranoia particularly when you are doing some credit resource shopping for a major purchase like a automobile loan. If you open discussions with several lenders to get the best deal you can, each of them might pull your credit report. But these are not the same kind of inquiries as calls for your credit report that are the result of a definite credit application. So shopping for a good credit deal will not hurt your credit score.
Click here to see Part 2: Credit Inquiries: Watching People Who Are Watching Your Credit Report Part 2
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