Should I not be pulling our credit reports?

[moneytree]

Is it hurting our FICO score? (or is it FAKE-O score, as Suze Orman says..lol) I joined Truecredit for myself and my husband and I keep on getting the email updates that there are changes to our report, but nothing stands out. What could they be referring to? I have seen where it has my name under inquiry. Is this hurting the FICO score? If so, I'll stop checking for a good month?? There were more than a few errors that I processed online to have resolved, but I do not think that they are getting to it that quickly--and assuming I'd get an email first. I think the changes have to do with almost being discharged. Can't wait!

I read that it took someone 3 wks. to climb up 50 pts. How many days past discharge should I wait before attempting to open a low balance credit card to start boosting our credit report? And which card would that be? Just read about how Capital One checks all 3, which drags down the scores. Help!

[ChainSmokin]

I think looking at your own credit report is considered a “soft” inquiry, soft inquiries do not harm your score. – Come to think of it, checking your own credit report may not even generate a soft inquiry. Doesn't seem like clean up activity should hurt your score either. Sure someone will come by to clear this up for us.


I joined Truecredit for myself and my husband and I keep on getting the email updates that there are changes to our report, but nothing stands out. What could they be referring to?

I recently got on this program as well, be sure to look at the “Alerts” tab near the top of the page. It will give you the details of all the alerts they have sent you.

I’ve gotten 2 alerts so far. One for “Included in BK” and one for “Delinquent Account”. I heard anywhere from 60 – 90 days after discharge is when to start cleaning up.

[BK'd-Betty]

Pulling your own credit report does not hurt your FICO - it does generate soft pulls, but they do not affect FICO, nor do lenders see your soft pulls - only your hard pulls.

Careful pulling too much - while you can get some inquiries bumped off the report by daily pulling - you can also end up with a split EQ file - and fixing that is a nightmare.

[BK'd-Betty]

Credit inquires (hard pulls, that is) hurt your score, but only for about 6 months - after the inquiry is 6 months old, it doesn't affect your FICO (it does stay on the report for 2 years).

BTW - Cap One does pull all three. But worse than that - they don't report your credit limit - only what your high balance is - so you may have a $1,000 limit and your high balance may have only been $200 - so your credit report appears that you only have a $200 limit with Cap One - this hurts your score by making your utilization appear inflated.

I'd stay away from Cap One for now.

[ChainSmokin]

[BK'd-Betty]

No - looking at the alerts won't hurt at all.

BTW - you can pull your credit report on TrueCredit once every 24 hours. The report is available online for one month, but you can update it every 24 hours, if you want - and that was what I was warning about. If you pull every day - and some people do - the file gets too big at EQ and it splits, which is a very bad, bad thing.