How to avoid high credit overwrite inquiries.

While hard inquiries only have a small negative impact on your credit score, it’s still crucial to pay attention to these changes if you’re trying to build your credit, especially if they’re errors. Credit reporting mistakes happen and removing inaccurate hard inquiries from your report can help you keep your credit in tip-top shape.

We will walk you through why it’s important to remove inquiries from your report and how to do it.

While removing an item from your credit report is not as simple as checking your email, it’s not as difficult as it might sound. Here’s how you can dispute inaccurate inquiries and iron out your credit.

1. Check Your Credit Reports for Free: The first step is to get your credit reports from each of the three credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Often, the same information is recorded on all three, but not always, and that’s why it’s important to check all three.
2. Look for Any Inaccurate Hard Inquiries: Once you’ve received your credit report, there will be a section for “Hard Inquiries.” You’ll want to scan over the entire report to make sure it’s accurate, but pay close attention to the inquiry section. If there are any hard inquiries listed here, make sure that you recognize them.

It’s important to note that sometimes the company listed that made the inquiry doesn’t match exactly with who you did business with. This often happens if a retailer partners with a bank to manage its credit card program.

3. Submit a Dispute: Inaccurate hard inquiries could happen for two reasons. First, if you were shopping around for a new service, the provider may have checked your credit report without you realizing it. For example, if you’re shopping around for a new cell phone carrier and the company did a hard credit check against your knowledge or approval, that could be grounds for submitting a dispute.

Second, if you find an inquiry that you don’t recognize at all, it could be an honest mistake, or it could be a sign of fraud. It’s important to reach out to the company listed to check. If it is a fraudulent inquiry, it may be a good idea to set up a credit freeze or even a fraud alert.

It’s a good idea to check your credit score at least once per quarter and your credit report once per year to check for errors. Free credit report websites can be a handy source to notify you about any new inquiries on your report. Signing up with one of these sites can help you receive any new updates about your credit reports in real-time