Inquiries

[CitaDee]

My account with  Pentagon Federal Credit Union, was closed and they put 4 hard inquiries on my credit file. Is that legal??

[fisthardcheese]

11 hours ago, CitaDee said:

My account with  Pentagon Federal Credit Union, was closed and they put 4 hard inquiries on my credit file. Is that legal??

Does it show a reason for the hard pulls? (Just for my own curiosity)

Very likely NOT legal.

I would contact an attorney in your area that does regular FCRA work.  If the attorney claims that you must submit a dispute first, then he is not experienced enough and I would call another one. 

If this were me, I would claim 4 willful violations of FCRA and demand $4k plus attorneys fees from the Credit union.

[CitaDee]

No. When I disputed the acct. with Pentagon, they said that if the account was past due, they had a right to put the inquiries on because it was in their contract. The acct was closed on 6/4/18 and the inquiries were put on 6/5/18, 9/20/18 and 4/3/19. What are the 4 willful violations of the FCRA?

 

[CitaDee]

Thanks for replying. 

[Harry Seaward]

1 hour ago, CitaDee said:

The acct was closed on 6/4/18 and the inquiries were put on 6/5/18, 9/20/18 and 4/3/19

Did you owe them money on these 4 dates? If so, they can pull your credit.

[BV80]

3 hours ago, fisthardcheese said:

Does it show a reason for the hard pulls? (Just for my own curiosity)

Very likely NOT legal.

I would contact an attorney in your area that does regular FCRA work.  If the attorney claims that you must submit a dispute first, then he is not experienced enough and I would call another one. 

If this were me, I would claim 4 willful violations of FCRA and demand $4k plus attorneys fees from the Credit union.

How would the entity with which the OP had an account not have permissible purpose?

1681b(a)(3)(A)

(a) In general  Subject to subsection (c), any consumer reportingagency may furnish a consumer report under the following circumstances and no other:

(3) To a person which it has reason to believe—

(A) intends to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer on whom the information is to be furnished and involving the extension of credit to, or review or collection of an account of, the consumer;

[CitaDee]

9 hours ago, Harry Seaward said:

Did you owe them money on these 4 dates? If so, they can pull your credit.

 

[CitaDee]

The account was closed on 6/4/2018 and yes I did have a balance on the account.

 

[fisthardcheese]

4 hours ago, CitaDee said:

The account was closed on 6/4/2018 and yes I did have a balance on the account.

 

If you still owe them, then they do have permissible purpose to pull your reports for collection activity.  However, they should not be hard pulls.  Are you sure they are hard pull and not soft?

[fisthardcheese]

13 hours ago, BV80 said:

How would the entity with which the OP had an account not have permissible purpose?

1681b(a)(3)(A)

(a) In general  Subject to subsection (c), any consumer reportingagency may furnish a consumer report under the following circumstances and no other:

(3) To a person which it has reason to believe—

(A) intends to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer on whom the information is to be furnished and involving the extension of credit to, or review or collection of an account of, the consumer;

If the account is paid and closed, then the account no longer exists and the relationship is terminated, removing their prior permissible purpose.   They CAN do a soft pull for Promotional use but not Account Review.  However, OP said these were hard pulls, so that would be wrong no matter what.  Perhaps OP is confused on hard vs soft pulls.

[Harry Seaward]

5 hours ago, fisthardcheese said:

However, OP said these were hard pulls, so that would be wrong no matter what. 

The FCRA doesn't distinguish between different types of inquiries. 

[fisthardcheese]

1 hour ago, Harry Seaward said:

The FCRA doesn't distinguish between different types of inquiries. 

No but it does say permissible purpose is required and THAT is determined by how and why they are doing a pull

[WhoCares1000]

The issue is that the account was charged off. Also, this is a credit union rather than a large bank. Credit Unions are more likely to keep collections in house rather than sell the debt to a JDB. Odds are they still own the debt.

[fisthardcheese]

3 minutes ago, WhoCares1000 said:

The issue is that the account was charged off. Also, this is a credit union rather than a large bank. Credit Unions are more likely to keep collections in house rather than sell the debt to a JDB. Odds are they still own the debt.

But this should all fall under "account review", which are "soft pulls".

There is a possibility that the CRA is coding the wrong type of pull, causing the hard inquiry.  Perhaps a dispute on the inquiries are in order.

[Harry Seaward]

2 hours ago, fisthardcheese said:

No but it does say permissible purpose is required and THAT is determined by how and why they are doing a pull

Understood, but a pull is a pull, for the purposes of determining an FCRA violation. If they have permissible purpose, they can pull for that purpose. 

1 hour ago, fisthardcheese said:

But this should all fall under "account review", which are "soft pulls".

I think "collection" would be more appropriate under the circumstances. In any event, whether it registers as a 'hard' or 'soft' is irrelevant as long as the requestor has permissible purpose. 

[CitaDee]

These were all Hard inquiries that are going to be on my CR for 2yrs.

[Harry Seaward]

1 hour ago, CitaDee said:

These were all Hard inquiries that are going to be on my CR for 2yrs.

That's correct.  The federal government has established potential creditors have a right to know when consumers don't pay their debts.