How to Remove Enquiry from CIBIL Report

If you’ve ever applied for a loan or a credit card, you’ve likely been a part of a credit enquiry. Essentially, when you borrow funds, the lender pulls out your credit report and performs a credit score check to assess your creditworthiness before sanctioning you the loan. This is done through a credit enquiry.

However, too many credit enquiries can harm your credit total. Then it is crucial to know how credit enquiry works, especially if there are errors. Let’s see how to remove credit enquiriesand why is it important.

What is a hard enquiry?

A credit enquiry occurs when a lending institution checks your credit report when you’ve applied for a loan. They do so to evaluate your past credit behaviour and determine your creditworthiness. So, whenever you apply for a loan, it gets reflected on your credit report through an enquiry and can affect your credit total.

While the hard enquiry has a small impact on your credit score, having too many in a short period can be detrimental. That’s because multiple enquiries indicate that you need credit to manage your finances and could reflect poorly on your financial habits.

In such a case, the idea of removing a hard enquiry from your CIBIL report might sound appealing. But it might not be as simple as it looks.

Additional read: Tips to Help You on How to Read Your CIBIL Credit Information Report

Can you remove the enquiry from your CIBIL report?

When reviewing your credit report, you need to make sure that the enquiries on your credit report are legitimate. Why? Because if you see a genuine enquiry on the report, then you cannot do anything to remove it, and it is likely to stay on the report for two years.

However, it is possible that you spot an unauthorised hard enquiry, which could be a sign of potential fraud or even a mistake on the part of the bureau. In this case, you have the right to dispute and remove the enquiry caused by fraudulent behaviour. This will ensure that you are not unfairly penalised for an error so that you can iron out your credit score. 

How to dispute an inaccurate enquiry?

You can contact the credit bureau and easily dispute an unrecognised hard enquiry on your credit report. You can do so by following the steps below-

• You can raise a dispute online with the credit agency on their website.
• Visit the ‘dispute resolution’ section and fill in the form with accurate details.
• Since the credit bureaus cannot make such changes on their own, they will verify the dispute with the financial institution.
• The lender will have to find a resolution for the dispute within 30-45 days of the issue being raised, as per law. Once the issue is resolved, the agency will notify you via email.
• You can check your credit report to ensure that the changes have been made.

Additional read: Top 5 Myths About Cibil Score

Final thoughts

Checking your credit report regularly and ensuring there are no errors is important to maintain a healthy credit score. You can perform a free credit score check online with Tata Capital.