Anyone that wants to offer you a line of credit or a loan will check your credit history before following through on the deal. All of these pre-qualified offers you get in the mail stem from someone running a credit check. Each one of these checks or inquiries can have an impact on your credit history, and ultimately on your credit score and your ability to borrow money or get a low interest rate as well.
There are two types of credit checks or credit inquiries and only one of them has any effect on your credit history. Those credit inquiries that you authorize (when you apply for a loan, mortgage, or revolving credit) appear on your credit report and affect your score. The more you apply for credit, the more inquires that will be done, and the lower you credit score will go. It is wise to limit your credit applications because of the results they will have on your credit history.
That does not mean that you shouldn’t shop around for the best loan opportunity. Similar credit inquiries (like for a mortgage or auto loan) that are pulled within a particular time frame, around 30 days, will be counted as just one inquiry. Companies finally realized that shopping around was a good thing and they quit penalizing the smart consumer because of it.
The other credit inquiries are those made by business that you have not authorized to get your information. Anyone with a permissible purpose (defined by the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act) has the ability to check your credit history – without you even knowing about it. Credit card companies, retail stores, and many other businesses that have a “permissible purpose” and want you to take money from them (for the right price) will pull your credit history to determine if you are eligible for one of their pre-approved opportunities. These inquiries will not affect your credit history or hurt your credit score, but they will show up on your report so that you will know who is looking into your business.
Prospective employers may also pull your credit history, and this is another type of inquiry that will not affect your credit score.
Any time a business pulls your credit history, it is marked on a report for you to view. These credit checks or credit inquiries can ultimately hurt your credit score, but only those credit inquires that you request will affect you in the end.