Credit pulls for credit limit increase/re-allocation?
 

Just saw this post from doctorofcredit--

http://www.doctorofcredit.com/maximi...iti-gold-deal/

Apparently, getting a credit limit or re-allocating CL from one card to another can cause a hard pull... I somehow missed this.

In any case, I recently opened a Citigold checking account and wanted to fund it with one of my BoA Alaska cards. I have 4 Alaska cards with CL of $20K, $20K, $5K, $5K, respectively. I wanted to maximize the reward so I called BofA to transfer $15K from one of the $20K cards to the other so that 1 card now has $35K and the others all $5K. Did I really get a HP for this?

Also, I opened the Citi Prestige a few months ago and it went to pending so I called in. Thinking I would use this card to fund my upcoming CG app, I transferred the CL from my old HH card to the Prestige so it now has a CL of $35K. All this happened minutes after my Prestige application. Did I get a 2nd hard pull for the credit re-allocation?

BofA does HPs for shifting CL around. It is stupid. Happened to me.

It varies. It's hard to generalize.

It varies from bank to bank, at a given bank it may vary depending on when exactly you do it.

And it's more likely obviously for a stand-alone increase than for moving credit around from one card to another card (with no increase), but again it can vary.

Sure it's easy to say it "can" happen, but it's harder to figure out when it "does" vs "doesn't" happen.


If you want to know specifically whether you already got a pull in a given situation, you have to monitor your credit. There are low-cost or even free ways to do that, depending how often you need to it and how through you need it to be (all 3 bureaus or just one, full report or just parts of it, etc). I haven't yet used anything other than the Free Annual Report (rotating among the 3 bureaus every few months), but there is more than that out there if you're interested.

Then there's also the question of how much one or two extra pulls here or there matter. That's also somewhat YMMV.

Thanks.

I checked my official scores (freecreditreport or something like that) less than a year ago and don't want to pay for it now so I checked my CK/CS-- no pulls reported. Not sure how accurate those are.

Also use credit dot com to show experian pulls

I think a lot also has to do with the company, length of service/membership and what you're requesting. I applied for the Amex Gold PR card and didn't get a hard pull. I had a Amex Everyday credit card with $10k, at the time, limit & the Green charge card for 2+ years each and Amex approved me based on that relationship. I found it odd but I monitor my credit closely after ID theft.

Citi and BoA do HPs far more often it seems.

Be careful relying on "official". There are many scoring models used by creditors/products. While most use a FICO model there are some that use VantageScores. Always consider relevance of a given model to a given creditor.

The Annual Credit Report site does not provide scores -- just reports.

CK's report data is accurate. CS should be as well. Barring, of course, any data issues which can happen.

Here's another scenario I'm thinking about. I have multiple Citi cards with annual fees like the Prestige and Premier. I'm probably going to close the Premier first and will probably transfer the CL from that card to the Prestige first. Could this potentially cause a HP?

Yes, but the creditor must tell you before the HP.

It is not hurt to ask.

Ok. So does the bank always have to tell us when we're getting a HP? Like I wrote in OP, I've moved my CL around a little bit when card signups and closures and have never been notified my credit was being checked.

There are people who will argue otherwise, but an existing creditor can basically pull your credit whenever it wants. Most will notify you as a courtesy before pulling your credit for something like a CLI or reallocation (or recon), but strictly speaking, such notification doesn't seem to be necessary as a legal matter.

I've moved credit between Citi cards and was warned by the CSR that there would be a hard pull, but there wasn't. As always with credit matters, things depend a lot on one's profile.

Yes, because they need your consent.

Yes in a limited way (SP), authorized under 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(a)(3)(F)(ii):

It is absolutely necessary and not a courtesy.

A consumer reporting agency is not allowed to disclose your report without your consent. This is why banks need to let you know they will do a HP. Without letting you know, both banks and the consumer reporting agency can get into big troubles.

This is why usually you will be transferred to a "specialist" so that you can be handled properly.

There's absolutely nothing in the statute that you quoted that differentiates between "soft" and "hard" credit pulls. If you have a relationship with a bank, they can pull a hard at any time.

As I said above, most banks will notify customers as a courtesy when making a hard pull, as both banks and consumers understand that a hard pull can ding a person's credit (and banks don't like to anger their customers unnecessarily), but it's not legally necessary.

The situation is similar for debt collectors, who can also make hard pulls without asking permission.

If you code a PP as 'collection', none of the credit bureaus will post that as a hard inquiry. They post as soft inquiries. That would ruin the point of hard inquiries, which is to determine how many times you are seeking credit.

There's nothing requiring inquiries to be coded in a specific way at all. All that's required is a permissible purpose.

People claim a lot on the various credit-related boards re: inquiries, but much of it is wishcasting rather than accurate legal analysis.