How to tell apart soft and hard search?

jaykay11

How would you know what a soft or hard search is on equifax? I recently applied for car finance through an online broker and ended up with about 12 credit searches on equifax. Are these credit searches soft searches? Thanks

Willing2Learn

A hard search will have the words 'credit application' or something similar next to them

T-G-C

I recommend not using a broker, explore options with direct finance operators. Brokers that are based on the internet have a direct connection to thousands of third parties, some of which, from personal experience, will be from India and call numerous times a day.

A soft search will show as something such as "Quotation Search", "Account Management", "Identity Check" or "Anti-Money Laundering Checks to comply with KYC Regulations".

A hard search will show as something such as "Checking Credit Application", "Subsequent Credit Search" or "Credit Application Check".

The different agencies will show differing labels, but it is pretty much the same drift. If in doubt, contact the reference agency and query the exact purpose of the search to find out its visibility status to other lenders.