A single hard inquiry into your credit history does no more than five points of damage to your score, but several of them could cause significant harm. You may, however, be able to remove inquiries from your report. The best way to remove inquiries might involve no work on your part.
Considerations
You cannot remove an inquiry from a credit report if it was a legitimate request, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Some non-lenders, such as cellphone companies, do a hard pull that counts against you. Soft pulls are not related to credit and won't ding your score. Typical soft pulls include preapproved loans and employment checks.
Contact the Creditor
To remove an unauthorized credit inquiry, you can write a letter to the creditor who pulled your report and request that he contact the credit bureaus and inform them that the application was in error or fraudulent. Sample letters are widely available for this, such as one on the Michigan State University website (see References).
You should send all letters by registered mail, and keep files on all of the letters you write to creditors and any calls regarding credit inquiries. You may need to reference these later.
Contact the Bureaus
If 30 days pass and the creditor takes no action or fails to reply to your letters, you should write to the credit bureaus, suggests Bargaineering. Attach a copy of your credit report with your letter and note the erroneous queries. Mention that you attempted to settle this matter with the credit agency but that they failed to respond. Request a report detailing the investigation if credit bureaus dispute your claim.
Wait
One or two inquiries probably won't hurt your credit score much, so it may be easier to just wait them out. Hard inquiries stay on your report for two years, but under the FICO scoring model they only impact your score for a year, according to Bankrate. Alternative FICO scores, such as the VantageScore developed by the major credit bureaus, count the inquiry for the full two years.
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