ByDoes Your Credit Report Show Inquiries You Did Not Make? Here's How DoNotPay Can Help You Remove Them!
Any credit inquiries from the past two years will typically show up on your credit report, and periodically checking your report for errors or signs of possible identity theft is a must to make sure you are not losing points for you are not responsible for. Although you generally cannot remove legitimate credit inquiries, you may have several options for removing inquiries that you did not make from your credit report. Here is an overview of what credit inquiries are, how they can impact your credit report, and how DoNotPay can help you improve your credit score if you notice fraudulent inquiries or other errors on your credit report!
What Is a Credit Inquiry?
Many businesses or lending institutions can request information from your credit report when determining whether you are an ideal applicant for a loan, credit card, or similar account. If you have considered financing a new cell phone, applying for a credit card, or pursuing other types of loans within the past two years, your credit report likely includes legitimate inquiries for each of these items.
There are two kinds of credit inquiry:
| Hard Credit Inquiries | This inquiry typically affects your credit score. It indicates a new loan application, such as mortgage or credit card, and is visible to those who want to check your credit standing. |
| Soft Credit Inquiries | This does not affect your credit score at all. This is recorded when companies offer preapproval offers for credit and loan products. This is only visible to you. |
What Should I Look For When Attempting to Remove Credit Inquiries?
You should periodically check your credit report to make sure that you do not see any , as such items may be the result of identity theft or errors that should be dealt with as soon as possible to avoid losing money or further damage to your credit score. Although even legitimate inquiries will have a minor negative impact on your credit score, watching for unusual inquiries from companies you do not recognize can help you catch potential issues before they have the opportunity to become larger problems.
How to Remove Inquiries from Your Credit Report on Your Own
Under most circumstances, you will not be able to remove legitimate hard inquiries that you made or approved from your credit report on your own. Although these inquiries will have an impact on your credit report until they resolve themselves, they will usually only remain on your credit report for two years. While this is a much shorter amount of time than many other categories remain on your credit report, you should not have to deal with them for two years if they were the result of identity theft, mistakes, or other types of fraud.
Attempting to deal with credit companies on your own can be a lengthy and difficult process. If you have experienced identity theft or otherwise do not recognize a particular inquiry, you may be able to have it removed by getting in touch with the lender or credit company and providing sufficient evidence that you did not request or approve a particular inquiry.
Next Steps for Removing Inquiries from Your Credit Report if You Can't Do It Yourself
Successfully removing illegitimate inquiries from your credit report by yourself is uncommon because it is difficult to convince a credit company that you are not responsible for a particular inquiry. Fortunately, you have other options for getting your credit score back where it belongs if contacting the credit company by yourself does not work. Your first instinct may be to meet with a lawyer in person at this point, but this can be an expensive process that may not be necessary. DoNotPay's AI Consumer Champion is a simpler and more cost-effective alternative for informing credit companies that a particular inquiry or another piece of information needs to be removed from your credit report and identifying what may happen if it is not removed promptly.
Remove Inquiries from Your Credit Report With the Help of DoNotPay
If you want to clean up your credit report but don't know where to start, DoNotPay has you covered in 3 easy steps:
- Search Clean Credit Report on DoNotPay.
- Prepare a recent copy of your credit report that you can use as a reference.
- Let us guide you through the 4 potential options:
- If you've already paid off your debt, we'll help you file a Goodwill Removal Request to get it removed.
- If you notice any errors in your report (we have a list of common errors you can use!), we'll help you file a credit dispute to the creditor or major credit bureaus.
- If there are no errors, we'll check if you're still eligible to file a debt validation request. If they can't validate your debt, they're required to remove it from your report and they can't collect it!
- Lastly, if none of the above options work, we'll help you file a pay-to-delete negotiation letter. You can customize the amount you are willing to pay in exchange for getting the item removed.
You can also check out our other credit products, including Credit Limit Increase, Get My Credit Report, Keep Unused Cards Active, and more!
Why Use DoNotPay to Remove Inquiries from Your Credit Report
Credit companies may be reluctant to assist you if you experience identity theft or a similar problem because everyone would like to see their credit score improved, and proving that your situation is completely beyond your control is often difficult or even impossible. DoNotPay's high level of expertise assisting people like you with removing errors from your credit report makes us one of the most convenient options you have for quickly solving problems that are unfairly impacting your credit score. Our credit inquiry removal and other credit repair services are:
- Easier than having to contact credit companies multiple times
- Faster than waiting for credit companies to respond to you
- More successful than trying to convince credit companies that a particular inquiry is an error on your own
DoNotPay Works Across All Entities With the Click of a Button
DoNotPay's credit cleaning services work the same no matter what type of problem you need assistance with. By choosing us, it is just as fast and easy to successfully:
- Remove late payments from your credit report
- Remove collections from your credit report
- Dispute other errors on your credit report
- Write a credit dispute letter
- Write a debt validation letter
- Take other steps to fix your credit score
What Else Can DoNotPay Do?
Our AI Consumer Champion makes it easy to take care of a wide range of issues without leaving home. We can also help you:
- Get other types of mistakes removed from your credit report
- Get freebies from fast food companies by completing surveys for you
- Get copies of birth, marriage, death, and divorce certificates
- Get any veterans' benefits you may be eligible for
- Get building permits that meet local requirements
- Get pet licenses that meet local requirements
At DoNotPay, we are here to help you fix errors on your credit report and find other ways to keep it from working against you. to learn more about removing inquiries from your credit report or to get started!