Credit Searches: Hard or Soft?

RG2015

I regularly check my credit reports free of charge but the three CRAs all have different terminology for previous searches which is not always clear to me.

Experian viewed through the MSE Credit Club have "Searches that may impact your Credit Score" and "Searches that do NOT impact your Credit Score". I do not like the use of "Credit Score" but I assume that the first are hard searches and the second are soft searches.

Equifax have "Credit Searches" and "Other Searches" which does appear clearer and does imply hard and soft respectively.

Callcredit via Noddle have "Others' Searches" and "Your Searches" which is totally confusing as some soft searches are definitely included in the "Other' Searches" section.

Is there a comprehensive summary available online detailing whether a search category is hard or soft?

The ones that particularly confuse me are "Identification Check", "Quotation Search", "Credit Quotation" and "Credit Search".

stehouk

I am not an expert but looking at mine i have learnt that the only hard searches usually done are when you apply for a credit account (although there are exceptions) ie:current accounts, credit cards etc, identification check is when you apply for savings accounts or if you are filing your'e tax online with hmrc. quoatation searches are used by comparison sites for car insurance etc hope this helps, i don't know of any sites that are dedicated to this info

KoshB5

Each provider of your credit report will unfortunetly not use the same summaries. The ’search purposes’ as they are called in the trade do very between the CRAs, soft searches are the likes of any type of quotation search, identity verification, money laundering check, admin reviews or a request by you to see your report e.g. clearscore, mse or noddle. Hard searches will normally state credit application / search i.e. when applying for a mortgage, loan, credit card or utility that you pay monthly.

You should only have 1 hard search per application, CRAs return the number of hard searches only as a count i.e. number in 1, 3, 6.... months