When trying to obtain a loan from a bank or another type of lender, the number of inquiries shown on your credit report can make a tremendous difference in your interest rates or even whether or not you can get approved. But you might not realize just how much inquiries can alter the way lenders perceive your credit. And with inquiry removal and credit repair services being so easily accessible today, there's no reason to allow too many inquiries, particularly those not authorized by you, to damage your credit potential.

Each time you apply for a loan, the creditor will check your credit history. This results in a credit inquiry on your file. Even if you respond to a credit offer in the mail or apply for a credit card or loan online, your credit will be checked, thus, creating another inquiry. When you apply for multiple loans within a short period of time, there will be multiple inquiries showing on your credit report all at once. These inquiries can lower your credit score drastically if you're not careful about with whom and how often you apply for credit.

How Lenders View Credit Inquiries

When lenders pull up your credit report, they are basically examining four areas of your credit: the amount you owe currently to other lenders, how you've paid lenders in the past, the number of judgments, charge-offs, liens or other negative items, and how many recent inquiries have been made to your credit. Inquiries can show as hard or soft inquiries. Hard inquiries are those made by creditors with whom you've applied for a new loan. Soft inquiries come from companies offering credit card deals with whom you did not apply, potential employers, utility companies, landlords, or those with whom you already have a loan.

It's the hard inquiries that harm your credit score and may cause a lender to be wary of approving your loan. Lenders view too many credit inquiries as an attempt by the borrower to obtain more credit than he/she can handle. It indicates that a borrower is "credit hungry" and may possibly be in financial trouble. If a lender suspects that you are in dire financial trouble, the lender may shy away from lending to you.

Lenders consider too many inquiries as an indication that your debt-to-income ratio is much higher than you portrayed on your application. New inquiries could mean that you have just recently opened up new lines of credit or loans that do not yet appear on your credit report.

Waiting Period and Inquiry Removal

The normal time frame for an inquiry to stay on your credit report is two years. Lenders, however, may ignore inquiries that are six months old or better. You can wait two years for inquiries to drop off your report, or you can take measures to remove certain types of inquiries from your credit report. Credit inquiries that are legitimate will remain, but those that were not authorized by you can be removed by taking a series of steps. Thankfully, you don't have to take this route on your own. There are inquiry removal and credit repair companies available online to help you do this.

A professional inquiry removal company can help you clean up unauthorized inquiries and may also help you reduce the number of soft inquiries. Removing unauthorized inquiries can boost your credit score by several points or more for each inquiry you remove.

Whether you need inquiry removal or credit repair for your business or personal credit, be sure to check with an online inquiry removal company to accomplish this with the least amount of difficulty.