I have requested and received my free annual copies several times. It has separate sections for soft/hard pulls and I assume the soft inqs are not shown to banks but I do not know. [edit: just checked mine, it says they are not shared with banks]

I'm curious: Why would you care if the bank knew you had requested your free report as allowed by law? Seems like perfectly normal behavior to me. Request it each year. If for no other reason, to make those jerks waste some time&postage.