Find Out Who Has Checked Your Credit Report

Dear HOD,

All you have to do to verify a company checked your credit report is get a copy. Every time someone, including you, checks your credit history an inquiry is added instantly. Your personal credit report lists all of the inquiries, including some not seen by anyone else. There are two types of inquiries, sometimes referred to as hard inquiries and soft inquiries.

The Difference Between Hard Inquiries and Soft Inquires

Hard inquiries result from your application for credit or other services. Because they represent potential new debt, they are shared with lenders and can have a small impact on credit scores. However, the impact of inquires is very minimal as compared to other factors, and their impact decreases over time.

Soft inquiries are usually initiated by others, like companies making promotional offers of credit or your lender conducting periodic reviews of your existing credit accounts. Soft inquiries also occur when you check your own credit report or when you use credit monitoring services from companies like Experian.

These inquiries have no effect on your credit score as they are never considered as a factor in credit scoring models. Soft inquiries are not disputable. They include checks of your credit history by your existing lenders as part of their portfolio review process.

Getting Your Free Experian Credit Report

You can request your personal report free once every 12 months at www.annualcreditreport.com. You can also get your free credit report from Experian at any time.

And, if you want to track changes to your report and be alerted to new information, you can subscribe to a credit monitoring service to get unlimited access to your report and be notified of new inquiries when they appear.

Thanks for asking.
- The "Ask Experian" team