At least once per year, you have the legal right to get a free copy of your credit report directly from one of the three main credit agencies. You may request by going to AnnualCreditReport.com. Examine the part of the page that is labeled "inquiries." You are worried about hard inquiries, which take place when you apply for credit. These can bring about a momentary and modest reduction in your score. Your credit score will not be impacted by "soft inquiries," which include situations in which you check your credit or a marketer for pre-approved offer screens you.

Although the information is presented in a manner that is unique to each credit agency or website, all of them will indicate any inquiries that might affect your score. If there is anything that you haven't seen before, you should look into it. The following are some of the less concerning reasons why you may not recognize the entry:

• A shop credit card you applied for may be issued by a financial institution that goes by a different name.
• It's possible that your application for a vehicle loan was sent to many lenders.
• Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, debt collectors are permitted to do credit checks, even though the majority of the time, these checks are considered "soft inquiries."
• It's possible that your identity has been stolen, and someone else is using it to establish fraudulent accounts in your name.

What To Do If You Spot A Problem

You have the option of disputing a hard inquiry online if you cannot determine the basis for the inquiry or if you feel it was performed without your agreement. The credit bureau must delete the query if they cannot verify that it was a valid inquiry. Make separate inquiries with each of the following credit bureaus:

If you have reason to believe that your personal information has been misused, you can have a fraud alert placed on your credit reports. This will cause any applications made in your name to be subject to closer examination. Notify any one of the credit reporting agencies; the information you provide will be shared with the other two. Alternatively, if you want the most security, you may freeze your credit report with all three agencies to prevent anybody from using your identity to create a new line of credit.

Disputing Inaccurate Hard Inquiries

You must check your credit reports frequently to ensure that the information is accurate. If you do this and find that your credit report contains a hard inquiry that you think is result of identity fraud, you have the right to file dispute national reporting agencies and request that they correct inaccurate information. If you do this, you can get your report corrected.

The first thing you should do is go to Dispute Center and go over your credit report to make sure all of your information is correct. Verify that the query was not the product of someone else using your identity, which is the next step.

It's possible that you won't know the name of the firm that examined your credit or that you won't recall asking for a loan with a company you are familiar with. Both of these scenarios are possible. The following are some instances in which inquiries that you don't understand might be legitimate:

• It's possible that you requested a house repair from a vendor and supplied them with your Social Security number; in response, the vendor may have interpreted this as permission to check your credit to fund the work.
• When you were looking for a vehicle and needed financing, the salesperson at the dealership probably took your application for a loan and submitted it to several different lenders so that they could find you the best possible interest rates. There is a possibility that many inquiries from that period will include firm names that you are unfamiliar with. If all of them fall within a few weeks' windows, it will be deemed rate shopping, and it will only count as a single query in the calculations determining your credit score.
• Another scenario in which a hard inquiry could appear fraudulent concerns shop credit cards. When inquiries are conducted, the store cards of national retail chains may come up alongside the names of financial services businesses you are unfamiliar with. This occurs because these retailers may utilize these companies. If you were to apply for credit at Kay Jewelers, your credit report might have an inquiry from "Comenity Bank/Kay."

You should contact the company that carried out the in-depth study if you are unsure of the name of the business that did the investigation. If you have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the hard inquiry resulted from identity theft, then the dispute may be resolved over the phone. Making use of this service will not cost you anything.