Credit Repair - Self Help

Every time you apply for credit somewhere an inquiry goes on your credit report. Having too many of these inquiries hurts your credit score. Inquiries remain on your credit report for 2 years. There is some dispute as to which inquiries hurt you more, for example, when you are shopping for a home mortgage you are likely to have many inquiries from different mortgage companies. Same goes for car shopping. Also, I have heard from some that inquiries over a year old do not hurt your credit score. To be sure I would just assume remove all of them so that there is no doubt that they are not hurting my score.

There are a few ways to handle this depending on whether Equifax handles your account directly or in some parts of the country CSC actually handles the Equifax reports. I unfortunately fall into the category of CSC handling mine.

If you are lucky enough to have Equifax handle your report directly, then it is very simple. Go here Equifax online dispute, then enter your zip code. If CSC handles your file, it will tell you this after you enter your zip code. If Equifax handles your report then you will come to the welcome screen. You will then click where it says “click here” if you do not have a confirmation number. In the Investigate Item #1 box you will fill in the blanks. For creditor’s name, enter in the creditor who pulled your report. In the Account# box, enter in “Inquiry mm/dd/yy” (This will be the date of inquiry). Then check “not mine”. Do this for up to 6 inquiries at a time. Click “send mail” and then sit back and wait, it could take anywhere from 24hrs to 2 weeks, but they will be gone.

Now, for those of us unlucky enough to have to deal with CSC, there is hope. The process is almost identical, it just takes a bit longer. Go to the CSC credit website. You will have to make an account, the account is only good for 24hrs. You will fill out your dispute the same way as the above instructions.

I hope this helps some of you remove some of the inquiries from your Equifax credit report. Monitor your Equifax credit score with Equifax Score Watch.