What is a soft hit on your credit?
Quick Answer
A soft credit occurs when a donor makes a gift but credits someone else for it. The hard credit goes to the account or donor. However, a soft credit goes to the one who receives the credit for it.
In many cases, a hard credit inquiry will only drop your score by about five points — and soft credit inquiries won't affect your score at all.
Crucially, soft searches aren't visible to companies – so they have no impact on your credit score or any future credit applications you might make. Only you can see them on your report and it doesn't matter how many there are.
Soft inquiries can stay on a credit report for up to two years, but they're not visible to anyone other than you. During that time they don't have any impact on your credit scores.
Soft inquiries do not affect credit scores and are not visible to potential lenders that may review your credit reports. They are visible to you and will stay on your credit reports for 12 to 24 months, depending on the type. The other type of inquiry is a “hard” inquiry.
Soft inquiries (also known as “soft pulls” or “soft credit checks”) typically occur when a person or company checks your credit as part of a background check. This may occur, for example, when a credit card issuer checks your credit without your permission to see if you qualify for certain credit card offers.
There are many reasons to perform a soft credit check on your own credit. Most people simply know this as “pulling their own credit report.” You should do this regularly to: Check for errors. From typos to cases of mistaken identity, numerous types of errors show up on people's credit reports.
A soft paper report is a reference to a lack of confidence in a report's facts or general disrespect for a report's author. A soft paper report has only one use—as toilet paper—which is how its name was derived.
A soft credit pull can show information such as credit accounts, late payments, collection activity and hard credit inquiries. Only you can see what soft credit inquiries have been run on your credit report.
Do soft inquiries fall off?
Both types of inquiries appear on your report for up to two years, but understanding their differences is crucial in maintaining good financial health. Soft inquiries don't impact your credit score.
Soft pulls can be as accurate as a hard credit pull and provide much of the same information. However, they won't affect your credit score like a hard pull would. Can lenders see soft pulls? Lenders cannot see a soft pull on your credit report -- only you can.
Soft inquiries typically happen when a company receives information to make an offer of credit, like a pre-approved credit card or loan offer. When these promotional inquires happen, the company does not receive your credit report.
Soft credit inquiries have no impact on your credit score. If a lender checks your credit report, soft credit inquiries won't show up at all. Soft inquiries are only visible on consumer disclosures—credit reports that you request personally.
The government-sanctioned site at annualcreditreport.com is such a site, as it is ONLY available for a consumer to pull their own credit report. Thus, reports from annualcreditreport.com will provide record of soft inquiries. Most commercial credit reports will not.
A soft credit check may be visible on your credit report, but won't affect your credit score, or your ability to get credit in future, so there's no need to worry about how often they're completed.
A soft inquiry happens whenever you check your credit report, or when a lender checks your credit report without your knowledge or permission. Soft inquiries have no effect on your credit score. Lenders can't even see how many soft inquiries have been made on your credit report.
If you find an unauthorized or inaccurate hard inquiry, you can file a dispute letter and request that the bureau remove it from your report. The consumer credit bureaus must investigate dispute requests unless they determine your dispute is frivolous.
If you obtain your own credit report or check your credit score using a credit monitoring service such as Experian's, that will generate a soft inquiry on your credit report. But, as with other soft inquiries, monitoring your own credit scores cannot hurt your credit scores.
There's no such thing as “too many” hard credit inquiries, but multiple applications for new credit accounts within a short time frame could point to a risky borrower. Rate shopping for a particular loan, however, may be treated as a single inquiry and have minimal impact on your creditworthiness.
Can lenders see soft pulls?
Can lenders see soft pulls? Lenders do not have access to soft pulls, and these inquiries do not appear in your credit report. Soft pulls are typically only visible to you.
If you'd like to limit soft inquiries, you can use the website OptOutPrescreen.com to opt out of the prescreening process that companies use to send you offers for items like credit cards, mortgage refinancing and insurance.
Additionally, lenders and credit card issuers may perform soft inquiries to determine if you meet the initial eligibility criteria for pre-approved offers. Soft inquiries provide information for assessment purposes without directly impacting your creditworthiness.
You do not need social security to run a soft pull: With a soft pull, you can obtain your customers' full credit report and FICO score using only their name and address. A soft pull does not require their social security number or date of birth.
To prequalify you for a loan, lenders check your credit report but conduct a “soft” inquiry, or soft pull, in which they prescreen your report without it affecting your score. A “hard” credit inquiry, in contrast — which happens when you get preapproved or formally apply for a loan — can adversely impact your score.
