How to shop around for mortgage rates

 FWIW, I never make that claim.

FYI, they can get away with it because "soft" and "hard" aren't actually words that appear on credit reports. Inquiries appear as "credit inquiries." There are no soft pulls. There are no hard pulls. Only "credit inquiries," and they are categorized by type of creditor, with mortgages being the least impactful and credit cards being the most. So they aren't lying, there was no "hard" pull b/c there was no "pull" at all, only an inquiry, an inquiry that you proactively took the positive step to initiate by calling to "inquire." It's bad customer service, but I've seen a compliance lawyer with a straight face say that inquiring is consenting; he kind of hinted that it was naughty to NOT run credit if someone calls to inquire about credit, since now the credit report doesn't accurately reflect that someone inquired about credit. I don't know that I'd hire that guy, but it is what it is.

Existing creditors (like if you have a Visa with BofA or a car loan with WF) get an updated copy of your credit report on a monthly basis, just like magazine subscribers get the magazine delivered once a month. They are "subscribers" to your credit. But they aren't "pulling" anything, they get it with no action taken on their part. They may or may not elect to open it, just like I may or may not elect to open the junk mail arriving in the mailbox outside my home. Electing to open it is initially what "soft pull" meant, but that was by convention, not from that ever appearing on any credit report, so basically the term "soft pull" is like the word "love"... what it means depends on who you are talking to.