BiggerPockets

So I have seen a bunch of people comment about their super duper double secret handshake method of removing inquires on one's credit report. What method do you use and how effective has it been?

Bryan, I think you brought this up since you knew I was here...LOL!

No secret handshake, but a shake down maybe. Inquiries can hurt, especially a cash lenders, depends on your total picture as it may be seen as someone trying to get money for something they can't or should not swing.....but if you have ten inquiries at car dearships and then buy a car, nothing is really made of that. It is also viewed as you shopping, lenders don't like that and the inquiries will show up. One bank may think you have several loans in the mill as well. Some banks have written into their loan policy that they won't deal with someone with over X inquiries in a period of time...if so, explain why, if they don't like it, there are many lenders that will understand your position. It's an assessment of contingent liabilities.
A simple letter of explanation to the lender...and the reporting agencies that can go in your file, should be sufficient.

The level of inquiries is also viewed in light of your business, is it customary to continually seek financing? If so, it's no big deal. There is a level of underwriting factors such as this as with large cash deposits for example. A series of large cash deposits is a red flag for several criminal issues, but if made by a car dealer, they are pretty much overlooked, until it's time to review the dealer and the level of business conducted....as an example.

So, it's my opinion that if someone tells you they will sell you a plan to avoid such issues, it's another scam....

Bryan,

As a general rule you can not remove correctly reported activity of any kind from a credit report in any legitimate way.

If a borrower disputes a negative item on a credit report that he/she knows is accurate it's fraud at worst and a frivolous dispute at best. It will always come back. Having said that inquiries can be removed from credit reports if they are invalid, meaning the borrower never applied for credit with the creditor reporting the inquiry.

I recommend disputing the inquiry with both the credit bureau and the reporting creditor in that case. The dispute letter to the creditor should include a demand that they provide a copy of the credit application.

I would also recommend the borrower watch his/her credit report closely in the coming months. Inquiries showing up that the borrower doesn't recognize is one of the first signs that the borrower may be a victim of identity theft.

In your specific case, I'd say Financexaminer is dead on, the number of inquiries would be evaluated along side the type of business you do and the types of credit being applied for. This is similar to the way inquiries from car loan and mortgage shopping are treated.

Thanks all.

To clarify...I have already jumped through the business credit hoops. I just want to pull off inquiries going forward to help with my business optimizer score.

I sent you a colleague request Eduardo...Can you please post what you know here for future readers though?

Thanks Eduardo.

What do you do with the online login to get a soft inquiry? I have a subscription to Truecredit.com....will that work?

Thanks Eduardo! For those interested here is a good primer from Creditboards.com:

B* Primer

It seems that the risks may not be justified if your scores are good and you are just trying to remove inquires to strengthen your file.

I am also questioning the value if it doesn't work for Experian. Won't most lenders pull all three and see everything anyway?

We pulled our score recently and my wife and I both had around 800 or so. This is really more of a curiosity thing for me.

For business lines inquires detract from the overall strength of your file. I have a scoring model that I track monthly in case banks start issuing lines above $50k on terms I can live with again soon. We generally keep our properties with debt on them so that isn't good collateral for lines right now. Later on we may restructure our debt so that we can collateralize lines so I would like to be able to remove inquiries from trade lines we personally guarantee.

I'm not sure if it will help if we keep the Experian inquiries. Experian is generally our lowest score so it won't be the middle one if that is what most lenders look at.