Quote Originally Posted by fundit View Post
Following JSL23's comments, I'd like to ask lenders to respond and tell us how to minimize credit pulls. Is any way to avoid credit being pulled until the merchant commits to the deal? I know that sometimes when we submit a deal, we ask that credit not be pulled and an offer be made contingent on the credit pull being done when the merchant accepts the deal? Do lenders honor these requests? Of course, I am assuming we have a general idea of the merchant's credit score. It is obviously in everyone's best interest to get deals done and having them declined because FICO scores are only a few points short of qualifying due to the credit pulls doesn't make sense. Sending files to only one lender is really not an option, since there can be such a wide disparity in the offers received and which are best for the merchant. Your opinions and insight are greatly appreciated.
The one thing you can breathe easy about is that the FICO scoring model assumes that consumers will shop for credit and therefore many inquiries in a very short period of time may hold the weight of only one pull.

So if their credit gets pulled 5x in 1 week, the score might only drop after the first one, but if the credit gets pulled once every 2 weeks for a couple months, those are going to hurt.