Consumer complaint received 2021-03-24
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: FL
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account information incorrect

Complaint:
This scam continues with credit inquiries! How is a consumer to shop when too many " hits '' creates a negative. Every car dealer you speak to etc. Frankly designed to kill you financially. It is an inquiry NOT a loan! 

How Do Inquiries for Mortgages, Auto Loans and Other Loans Impact Your Credit Score? 

Hard credit inquiries, like other information on your credit reports, are seen by the major consumer credit scoring models, FICO and VantageScore. Having multiple hard inquiries within a short period of time can be predictive of credit risk, so having too many inquiries for different types of credit can result in a lower credit score. And get this any and all are allowed to make inquries and NO FREEZE keeps them off the file FACT! 

While all hard inquiries resulting from loan applications were once considered separate events by credit scoring models, that hasn't been the case for many years. FICO and VantageScore have evolved in their treatment of multiple inquiries as a way to avoid unfairly penalizing a consumer for being a smart rate shopper. 

In the contemporary versions of FICO 's credit scores, for example, hard inquiries related to mortgage, auto loan and student loan applications are entirely ignored for 30 days from the date of the inquiry. So if you settle on a loan during that 30-day time period, your scores will not be affected by inquiries. 

After those inquiries have aged past 30 days, they still may not be counted as independent inquiries by credit scoring models. That's because FICO considers similar loan-related inquiries that have occurred within 45 days of each other as a single inquiry in the scoring process. 

For example, if you shopped around for an auto loan with five different lenders over a period of 45 days, FICO would consider those five hard inquiries as one hard inquiry for credit scoring purposes. This is because the inquiries all occurred within 45 days of each other, and FICO understands that you were rate-shopping for one loan, not five loans. 

In VantageScore 's credit scoring systems, all hard inquiries that occur within 14 days of each other are considered as one inquiry for the scoring process. This applies to all hard inquiries, regardless of the lender. 
Inquiries Are Minimally Important to Credit Scores The reason any type of information in your credit report may factor into your credit score is its indication of credit risk. Taking on multiple new credit obligations in a short period of time indicates possible financial distress and elevated credit risk, which is why hard inquiries can impact your scores. That said, hard inquiries do not always impact your scores and are never the sole reason for a low score or being declined for credit. 

When you compare the influence of inquiries with the influence of the other credit scoring categories, you will see that the consideration of inquiries is the least important aspect of your credit reports. They just aren't that important to your scores. 

REALLY OPINION BY EXPERIENCE not true!

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation