At MSI Credit Solutions, we help our clients improve their credit profiles by identifying and disputing inaccurate, outdated, or unverifiable negative items on their credit reports. It’s important to understand the different types of inquiries that appear on your report, as they have different impacts and we handle them differently.

1. Soft Inquiries (Soft Pulls)

• What they are: Think of these as background checks on your credit that don’t involve you actively applying for new credit. They happen when you check your credit score, when companies send you pre-approved offers (like those credit card offers in the mail), when potential employers check your credit (with your permission), or when your existing lenders periodically review your account.
• Impact on your score: Soft inquiries do not negatively impact your credit score. Lenders and scoring models don’t see these as a sign that you’re seeking new debt, so they aren’t considered risky behavior.
• What we do about them: Since soft inquiries don’t harm your credit score and are often initiated by you or for promotional/monitoring purposes, they are not considered “negative items” in the context of credit repair. We don’t focus on or dispute soft inquiries because they aren’t detrimental to your credit health. They are a normal part of having a credit file.

2. Hard Inquiries (Hard Pulls)

• What they are: These occur when a lender checks your credit report because you have directly applied for new credit. This includes applying for a mortgage, an auto loan, a student loan, a new credit card, or sometimes even renting an apartment or setting up utility services. You typically have to authorize these checks.
• Impact on your score: Hard inquiries can negatively impact your credit score, although the impact is usually small (often a few points per inquiry) and diminishes over time. Lenders see multiple hard inquiries in a short period as a potential sign that you might be taking on too much debt or facing financial distress, which slightly increases your perceived risk.
  • Acknowledgement: We recognize that multiple hard inquiries, especially within a short timeframe, can slightly lower your credit score.
  • Why We Don’t Dispute Them: Hard inquiries are typically factual records of you applying for credit. If you did apply for that loan or credit card, the inquiry is accurate information. Attempting to dispute legitimate hard inquiries is generally not successful with the credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) because the lender can easily verify that you initiated the application. Pursuing disputes on factual hard inquiries isn’t an effective use of time or resources within the credit repair process.
  • Our Focus: While we don’t dispute hard inquiries, our primary focus at MSI Credit Solutions is tackling the other, more impactful negative items that can severely damage your credit score. This includes things like:
    • Late Payments
    • Collections Accounts
    • Charge-offs
    • Bankruptcies
    • Judgments
    • Liens
    • Inaccurate Personal Information
    • Repossessions
  • The Bigger Picture: Removing even one significant negative item, like a collection or charge-off, typically has a much greater positive impact on your credit score than removing a hard inquiry. Our expertise lies in challenging these substantial negative marks based on accuracy, verifiability, and timeliness according to consumer protection laws like the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

In Summary:

• Soft Inquiries: Are harmless background checks, don’t affect your score, and are not something we dispute.
• Hard Inquiries: Result from your applications for new credit, can slightly lower your score, but are generally factual records. We do not dispute legitimate hard inquiries because it’s typically ineffective. Instead, we concentrate our efforts on disputing other inaccurate or unfair negative items like collections, late payments, charge-offs, etc., as addressing these provides the most significant benefit to our clients’ credit scores and overall financial health.

Our goal is to maximize your score improvement by focusing on the items that have the biggest negative weight and where legitimate grounds for dispute exist.