re: Got an unknown hard credit inquiry... strange happenings

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The link the other poster provided is good. You'll need to create an account with each of the three credit bureaus if you haven't already. Once that is done you should be able to navigate to where you can freeze the account. One of them is a little tricky to find where it is on the site the best I remember.

Anyway, once you find where to do it on each site I suggest bookmarking that particular page. That way when you need to unfreeze for a credit check it's easy to go back to it quickly and schedule a thaw (unfreeze for a period of time). There are also apps for the credit bureaus that may allow you to do it on them now, not sure. I have enough apps already, lol.

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Ya - it turns out I had Transunion open but the other two frozen. I must have needed it open for something and forgot to freeze it again.

Funny part of this is, I had tried to get credit on something a few weeks ago and got turned down... was bummed. Then got the "turn down" letter in the mail and it was because my bureau (Equifax I think) was frozen and they couldn't pull my report. Doh!

freeze your credit all the time, temporary unfreeze and like someone said, dont loose your PIN. We just unfroze my wife's to get a travel card for free miles and refroze it 48hrs later..

Work on that credit score bud.

Well it looks like you pay it off on time. Like I said, I would look into requesting credit limit increases.

Also, here is a trick if you don't have any issues paying in full a little early.

They only report your credit usage once a month. If you can find out what that date (usually around 25 days before your due date) is and just make sure it's paid in full or very low on that day you will show a 0% utilization. Of course you'll be paying it off about 25 days early, but it will help keep your score closer to its max potential and help get credit limit increases and or new cards which will also increase your overall limit which is what it utilization is based on.

Then over time you can build it up your overall limit, so you have a very high limit and only need about 10% of it.