Credit Score Question

[Mr. Brass Bonanza]

Hello,

My wife applied and was accepted for a store charge card. Because she authorized the company to look at her credit report, known as a "hard" or voluntary inquiry, she received an alert from her freecreditreport.com account.

How badly can such an inquiry affect your credit score? I mean, could it drop 10 points or something just because you applied for a store charge card? If so, how soon before it bounces back up?

Thanks!

[Strmchsr]

1 inquiry will have a minimal impact. The problem comes if you apply for multiple loans or credit cards. When that happens they see you are trying very hard to get credit, which knocks your score down. In general, though, it won't make much of a difference.

[Ian]

Chris is right. Unless there is an excessive amount of inquiries from different lenders in a short period of time, it's not likely to affect your score that much.

[Advnt05]

It's my understanding that "Store" credit cards ding your credit score more so than a traditional card. It's not the issue of an inquiry being made but one of a less secure easier to get credit line at a store. I'm not sure how much more it would ding you but that's the impression I got. We have a local radio guy (Clark Howard) that talks about this a lot. You might find some stuff on his site.

[pixiesmimi]

That's why I have been very leary of applying for the Disney card. I didn't want it to affect my credit score. But I finally broke down and applied last week. I'm glad to hear that just one time like this doesn't really hurt you.