Hard vs. soft inquiries — what actually moves your score
Only hard inquiries affect your score, and only some of those are even disputable. Here's how to tell the difference.
Every time someone looks at your credit file, the bureau records it as an inquiry. Soft inquiries — pre-approved offers, your own credit checks, employer screenings — are invisible to lenders and have zero effect on your score. They show up only on the version of the report you pull yourself.
Hard inquiries happen when you apply for credit and the lender pulls your file to make a decision. Each hard inquiry can knock a handful of points off your score, the effect typically fades within a few months, and the inquiry itself drops off your report after two years.
The disputable hard inquiries are the ones you did not authorize. If you see a hard inquiry from a lender you never applied with, that is an unauthorized pull under 15 U.S.C. §1681b, which requires a 'permissible purpose' for every hard inquiry. No permissible purpose, no permission to pull — and the inquiry has to come off.
Rate-shopping is a special case. The FICO and VantageScore models bundle multiple mortgage, auto, or student-loan inquiries inside a 14- to 45-day window and count them as a single inquiry. So shopping three lenders for a car loan in the same week does not triple-ding your score.
If you legitimately applied, the inquiry will be hard to remove because the lender can document the permissible purpose. Focus your dispute energy on the ones you genuinely did not authorize. Those are the cleanest wins because the furnisher cannot produce a signed application.