Discover how pre-approved credit offers affect your credit score, including the difference between soft and hard inquiries ...

Lindsay VanSomeren is a personal finance writer based out of Kirkland, Washington. Her work has appeared on Business Insider, Credit Karma, LendingTree, and more. Jordan Tarver has spent seven years ...

Lindsay VanSomeren is a personal finance writer based out of Kirkland, Washington. Her work has appeared on Business Insider, Credit Karma, LendingTree, and more. Jordan Tarver has spent seven years ...

A hard inquiry happens when a company checks your credit reports because you have applied for credit. You can dispute hard inquiries you didn’t authorize, but you cannot remove legitimate credit ...

When you apply for credit, a lender is likely to check your credit file or, to use a more technical term, perform a credit inquiry. A credit inquiry is a lender's request to access your credit history ...

When we talk about credit scores, inquiries almost feel like an afterthought. Inquiries, or new credit, only contribute about 10% to your FICO score, so it's easy to assume they aren't a big deal. But ...

A soft inquiry pulls enough of your credit history to determine your creditworthiness; a hard inquiry is a formal review of your credit report. Many or all of the products on this page are from ...

Shopping for a mortgage, car loan or student loan? Make sure you know the 45-day rule Written By Written by Contributor, Buy Side Ben Luthi is a contributor to Buy Side and an expert on credit, loans, ...

Soft credit checks won’t impact your credit score, but the same can’t be said of hard credit inquiries. Katie covered all things how-to at CNET, with a focus on Social Security and notable events.

Credit inquiries can either be in the form of hard inquiries or soft inquiries, and they can happen for a variety of reasons.