Gabriela Walsh is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance® and a personal finance editor at Red Ventures. Her previous work experience includes various editorial positions at FinanceBuzz. She ...

Discover how pre-approved credit offers affect your credit score, including the difference between soft and hard inquiries ...

A hard credit check can take a few points off your score temporarily, but a soft inquiry doesn't affect it. Many, or all, of the products featured on this page are from our advertising partners who ...

Lindsay VanSomeren is a personal finance writer based out of Kirkland, Washington. Her work has appeared on Business Insider, Credit Karma, LendingTree, and more. Lindsay VanSomeren is a personal ...

Unlike a soft inquiry which is carried out when you check your credit score, a hard inquiry happens when you apply for a loan ...

TransUnion, one of the three largest credit bureaus in the U.S., has agreed to a $23 million class action settlement to resolve claims it failed to remove disputed hard inquiries from consumers' ...

Refinancing replaces your old mortgage with a new loan, which can lower your average age of credit – a small but meaningful component of your credit score. Mortgage refinancing usually requires a hard ...

Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. Thomas J. Brock is a CFA and CPA with more than 20 years of experience in various areas ...

Credit inquiries can either be in the form of hard inquiries or soft inquiries, and they can happen for a variety of reasons. Hard credit inquiries occur when someone like a landlord or potential ...

To build and maintain a good credit score, you must access your credit report and score and monitor it regularly. Similarly, ...