Does a hard inquiry from a CA affect my credit score? Is a hard inquiry from a CA seen by mortgage lenders?

Question

Credit report states that inquiry will stay on for 2 years

Collection account is no longer on credit report. The collection account is over 10 years old. CA purchased it and posted a hard inquiry (2 years) on my credit report two weeks ago.

Answer 1

Unfortunately if the collection agency owns the account, then they have permissible purpose to pull a hard inquiry.
If they pull hard inquiries often then you may be able to get them for poisoning your reports.

The FCRA isn't going to be much help in this case, unless they actually report the account.
You need to look through your states debt collection laws to find out if it is illegal in your state for them to pull a hard inquiry on a 10+ year old account.

A person should never overlook their own states statutes when dealing with collectors or the CRA's - or basically anything credit related.

Answer 2

A hard inquiry will knock your score down a little. Hard inquiries are part of the official record, so they can be seen by anyone pulling your credit report. I'd worry more about the account that caused the collection agency to do the inquiry than the inquiry itself when it comes to applying for a mortgage.

Answer 3

I dont even know what a hard inquiry is. Then again ive only done this for 30 years. An inquiry is an inquiry, I very heard of them rating them differently. Any inquiry that is made on your credit will show.

Any inquiry will stay on your credit for up to 2 years but most lenders only care about the last 6 months. Normally it will still show but it wont affect your credit score after that long.

Answer 4

When a lender pulls your credit report he sees who has viewed your credit in the last two years. Too many inquiries do hurt your credit, but not too much. A lender will be more concerned with your credit score than who has viewed it.