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Does Running Your Credit Lower Your Score?
Unfortunately, the average American does not usually recognize the
importance of periodically checking his or her credit report and
score.
- David R. Wolff, Vice President, Consumer Relations, Trans Union
We've all been "warned" about credit checks and how they
can lower our scores…but how frequently does this actually
happen? After all, when making a vehicle purchase, many of us will
look around, and often have our credit checked by a couple of different
companies prior to making our purchase.
Rest assured, in most instances, there's nothing to worry about.
Generally speaking, the question of lowered scores is highly dependant
on your credit files recent general activity. A lot of recent inquiries
on new accounts can lower a score, but even then, it would more
than likely be a single digit…that is, it probably won't be
a determining factor that would swing the balance on a loan approval
one way or the other.
In fact, checking your credit score can oftentimes be beneficial.
Checking your credit before a planned purchase could alert you to
potential problems, and give you time to clean up your report before
you apply for a loan. It's not unusual for consumers to be surprised
to find inaccurate information, such as false delinquency reports,
etc., on established accounts.
To conclude, if you haven't had any other recent activity to your
file, a couple of inquiries will probably not have a negative impact
on your score. As we've noted above, it may in fact, pay off.
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